


Till then we must live

by Imagineitdear



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Feels, Coming Out, Demon Bucky Barnes, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Fuck Or Die, Gay Bucky Barnes, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:14:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21579709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imagineitdear/pseuds/Imagineitdear
Summary: They have a good thing going, he has to acknowledge. Steve spends nearly every day with Bucky, basking in his presence, and Bucky can feed off a very willing, apparently very delicious prey. Steve gets meaningful touches, and Bucky gets his food. What’s wrong with that?Still he lays in his bed for hours, wondering what exactly he would say to Bucky if he did follow Sam's advice. Every idea his brain cooks up sounds more terrible than the last:Hi, I've never been into boys but I'm apparently into demons?Hi, thanks for having my back all these years, would you care to have it against the wall?Hi, I notice you've gotten to know my dick, may I properly introduce you to my ass?Hi, I've loved you since we were in diapers, can I love you till we're in them again?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 31
Kudos: 390
Collections: Steve Rogers & Bucky Barnes AUs





	Till then we must live

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Thanksgiving lovelies! I didn't use archive warnings because this fic is the EPITOME of the word 'dubious consent' and I can't even start to unpack it, so if you want to know about anything in particular before reading though just message me!

Steve finds his best friend between the thighs of a stranger, kneeling in an alley that smells of piss and beer. The sounds coming from the both of them--moans and sighs from the nameless man, sloppy, indecent sucking noises from Bucky--should have warned Steve before he rounded the corner. He feels like an idiot, staring as the man grunts harshly, pulling on Bucky's modern haircut as he sucks down his load. 

He should be looking away. He should be walking away. 

“Thanks,” the guy grunts a moment later as he tucks himself in, too inebriated it would seem to notice Steve a few paces away. He stumbles off a moment after, back into the club with too much bass behind them. The one Natasha tipped Steve off about in the first place.

Bucky wipes his mouth, clears his throat. He says in a ragged voice, still facing the brick wall, “Hey Steve.”

Steve swallows. 

“Hey Buck.”

He watches silently as Bucky rises to his feet, faces Steve without a hint of embarrassment despite the indecent state of his mouth. Mostly he looks energized, more alive than he ever was living with Steve. Brighter, even. 

Steve takes a step back. “Sorry I interrupted--”

“What are you doing here?”

He looks genuinely curious, not hostile or closed-off the way he always seemed in the few months they lived together. Despite the fact that Steve essentially just watched him swallow down some guy's come.

But it looks as though Bucky's got a better handle on life sucking down jazz than he ever did with Steve's help.

“I just wanted to see you,” Steve admits, sounding pathetic to his own ears. 

“Well, you've seen me…” Bucky cocks a brow, understandably confused. He takes a few steps closer.

Steve nods. 

“Yeah.” 

He feels a sudden urge to wrap his arms around this man, who with the shorter hair and brighter expression looks like his best friend more than he ever has before, this century. 

Instead he sucks in a breath and goes on. “Yeah. How’ve you been, Buck?”

“Having a great time, as you can see,” Bucky quips, though there's something bitter in it that Steve doesn't like. 

Then again, Bucky spent the years before and during the War out with guys and dolls alike. Steve can't say he's surprised to see him back at his favorite pastime, even if a painful little twinge hits Steve between the ribs like it always did then. He doesn't know why Bucky would feel ashamed of it now.

“Out on the town like old times,” Steve says, trying for a comraderic tone. He's taking the chance that Bucky remembers. By his shrug in response, Steve can't tell either way. 

Bucky bites on his red, swollen lips before asking, “You wanna dance, Stevie?” Jerking a thumb towards the door nearly rattling on its hinges behind them.

Steve steps back further. 

“Just wanted to check on you, make sure you're alright,” he shakes his head, and the bright liveliness to Bucky's person fades a little as he nods. 

“Just fine, thanks,” Bucky says shortly. 

He turns without another word, probably to go back in. Steve feels something inside lurch with the movement--like there's a string tied to Bucky somehow, trying to drag his heart with. 

“Wait!” 

Bucky turns back slowly, giving Steve another curious look. Like he can't imagine what Steve is going to say--and, hell, neither can he.

The words come anyway. “Would you like… breakfast? Tomorrow?” 

Bucky blinks at him, and Steve finally thinks to include, “With me, I mean?”

Something in his gray eyes softens. Bucky nods. He even huffs a laugh, running his flesh hand through the longest, top portion of his hair. “Sure, Steve. Sure. Molly's, at 10?”

It's Steve's favorite diner in modern Brooklyn, mostly because it feels the least modern. He took Bucky there in the beginning--the first few weeks when he thought he was helping. He's surprised Bucky remembers. 

“Sounds great,” Steve says, and stands there like an idiot while Bucky nods and hesitantly turns back again, opening the club back door. The raucous music and flashing light spills into the alleyway. But he doesn't give Steve one last glance--just closes it behind him.

A year since they last saw each other, and Bucky could leave again. Just like that.

A group of drunk college kids stumble by a few minutes later, finally jolting Steve out of his frozen spot in the piss-and-beer alley. He drives himself home in a haze. 

**_Did you find him?_ ** Natasha texts once he's arrived back at his own apartment. 

**_Sorta_ ** , Steve replies. **_We're meeting at Molly's tomorrow._ **

**_That's good._ **

He doesn't reply, not so sure himself. Bucky seemed so, so-- _normal,_ after all. His modern haircut, his confidence, his easy conversation. All things he wasn't even close to having, with Steve.

What's the point? 

What if he was holding him back? And Bucky’s happier without him? Should he even show tomorrow?

Steve, of course, knows he still will. 

\--

Bucky already waits at the back corner booth, looking studiously down at his phone as Steve enters the eat-in. But he flashes Steve a smile when he approaches, smoothly pocketing the device and gesturing to the seat across his.

“Have a good night?” Steve asks as he sits, trying for polite.

Bucky snorts at him. “You saw the kind of night I had,” he answers, cocking a brow. 

Which doesn’t answer the question, Steve notes, but it’s not his business really either. Bucky looks slightly less lively this morning, but still much better than he should after partying and drinking all night. Benefits of his knock-off serum, Steve supposes, finally kicking in now that he's taking care of himself.

“What did you like here?” Bucky asks, gesturing around them. “The hot cakes, right?”

Steve nods, and Bucky blows out a dramatic breath. 

“Well good, cause that’s what I ordered you,” he says with a wink, warming something inside Steve that he ignores.

“Thanks for coming, Buck,” he says, hoping Bucky can hear everything he doesn’t say: _I’m sorry for not understanding you, I’m so glad you’re okay, I’m so thankful you’re sparing me even this hour when I've done nothing but hurt you._

Bucky shrugs, though, glancing around them with quick, sniper-focus before saying, “I like this place.”

Not _I like spending time with you_ , by any means, but Steve will take what he can get. 

“Here’s this to get you started, sweetie,” says an older waitress to Bucky--Holly, if Steve’s perfect memory serves--who doubletakes in the middle of setting down the plate as she recognizes Steve. “Oh, is this a date then, Captain?” she asks, looking pleased. 

Steve blanches. “Oh-Um-”

“Just old friends,” Bucky cuts in easily, giving her a warm smile. 

Holly nods knowingly and tells them, “Be back soon with the rest!”

“Here,” Bucky says, splitting the huge pastry Steve recognizes as a ‘Bear Claw’ in half for each of them. 

Steve lets himself be distracted by the delicious appetizer for a minute or two, gathering his thoughts. Wondering what he even wants out of this meeting, anyway. Man with a plan? Not so much. 

“What have you been up to?” he blurts when Bucky is still licking his fingers clean, and the other man freezes for the smallest second before consciously relaxing, wiping them off with a napkin.

“I’d ask you the same, but all I have to do is turn on the news.” Bucky gives him a small smile, then takes a swig of coffee.

“We keep HYDRA on their toes,” Steve agrees, but Bucky snorts into his drink.

“More the other way around, from what I've seen.” 

“They haven’t bothered you?” Steve asks, suddenly horrified he didn’t think of such a possibility earlier.

Bucky immediately leans forward, placing a solid, warm hand on Steve’s forearm. “Haven’t seen hide or tail of them, Steve,” he says, “I swear. You’re keeping them busy enough.”

Steve blows out a breath, enjoying the simple touch while he can. “That’s good.”

“Even if they tried, I don’t make myself easy to pin down,” Bucky adds as he puts his hand back, eyes narrowing. “Which leads to my main question: who found me for you?”

The fact that Bucky doesn’t even insinuate the possibility Steve found him himself doesn’t rankle--in fact Steve is more than happy, considering it’s evidence Bucky remembers Steve's lack of tracking skills, if nothing else. 

“Natasha,” Steve answers, and Bucky immediately relaxes.

His eyes even grow fond, crinkling at the corners as he says, "Surprised the girl took the time. She's taking on a big monster, even for a spider.” 

“It’s like she was born for it,” Steve says, thinking fondly of how good Natasha is at collecting HYDRA intel for them.

Bucky sighs and leans back, expression going distant. “She was,” he murmurs.

Holly is back then with Bucky’s order--two stacks of buttermilk hot cakes for Steve with a double order of bacon and eggs, and two omelets for Bucky with a double order of hash browns.

“Anything else I can get you?” she asks brightly, and after Steve tells her, “We’ll let you know,” Bucky snorts and adds, “He really will.” 

Between bites, Steve can't help but ask, “So...eating’s okay, then, huh?” as he watches Bucky pack into his omelets without hesitation.

Bucky pauses mid-chew, swallowing. “Um, yeah. S’fine now.” He eats a little slower, frowning, before adding a minute later, “I’m sorry for worrying you like that. I didn’t know...I was still figuring out how to handle everything then. I hope you didn’t think…”

“You were killing yourself?” Steve says, because he can’t step around something like that.

Bucky shoots him a dark look. “Yeah. That.” He sighs, puts his hand back on Steve’s forearm. “Look, there’s a lot you don’t need to know. But you should know: none of what happened was your fault.”

And yet that’s the one thing--out of those four months failing to help and care for Bucky, while the Winter Soldier trial ran its course--that Steve is sure of.

Bucky must be able to tell his thoughts by his face. His grip tightens almost to pain, jaw hardening. “You trust me, Steve?”

“Always,” Steve replies, knowing he’s probably walking straight into something.

“Then trust I’m doing the right thing. For you, for me, for everybody. This is how it’s gotta be,” he says, so sincere with those gray eyes that Steve never gets tired of looking into. “Okay?”

“Sure, Buck.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. 

“You’re the one to be worried about,” he says, pointing an omelet-loaded fork at Steve in accusation. “I can’t hardly go a day without hearing about the next big explosion you barely jumped out of with your skin attached.”

Steve laughs, and Bucky laughs with him, and they seem to silently agree on moving to lighter subjects. Like:

“Talk to that agent Sharon anymore?”

“Joined the CIA, in Germany. Didn’t want to do long distance.”

“Her loss.”

“Hah.”

Or:

“Try any new food from this century you like?”

“Don’t know if it’s new or from this century, but Pho has a special place in my heart now--what, you tried it?”

“Buck, Pho is glorified instant ramen--”

Or:

“How’s Peggy?”

“Same. She liked the chocolate I brought her last time--she's tired of flowers, she says all they do is die. Told me, ‘At least chocolate won't wilt.’”

“Agent Carter, ever the pragmatist.”

By the time Steve is scraping up syrup with his last piece of pancake, they’ve talked for two hours and the lunch rush is starting to hit. 

“I should probably get going,” Bucky starts, waving at Holly for the bill. 

A sudden flurry of anxiety attacks Steve’s heart as Bucky insists on paying and Holly takes his card.

So he takes a steadying breath before asking, “When can I see you again?”

Bucky gives him a surprised, considering look, before his mouth curls into a smirk. 

“Date must have gone well, then,” he teases. 

Steve ignores the joke. “Do you have a place to stay? Running water, electricity, food--”

“Steve,” Bucky interrupts, smirk softening.

“I just--I want you to have everything you need, Buck,” and it all comes rushing out of him like a dam breaking, “I know I messed up--I should’ve--well I should’ve a lot of things, but I’ve got Stark and a service pension I don’t even know what to do with and I need to know you’re safe, I need to see you, just--every once in a while, even, I just want to help in any--”

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky says, out of his booth seat and holding a gloved hand against Steve’s neck in that place they always reached for each other. He puts his flesh hand on Steve’s cheek, though, which Steve can’t remember happening in decades. Maybe not since the last time his scrawny ass got sick and Bucky was checking his temperature.

He uses the hand to tilt Steve’s face up, force his gaze to meet Bucky’s--and what a gaze. Steel-gray intensity, yet still warm in a way. Like metal heated by flesh. 

A hazy, melting feeling overcomes him then, liquifies the rest of the words crowding Steve’s throat. His mind numbs and tingles with something just out of his reach. He feels his jaw slackening ever-so-slightly, muscles in his body uncurling. Like getting hit with a tranq, Steve thinks distantly.

Then one second later it’s over, Steve’s senses coming back online with a sharp intensity that makes him gasp. He blinks twice and Bucky is already gone--in the next second he looks over his shoulder only to see the last inch of Bucky's jacket as he slips out the door.

“Here’s the card back...where did your friend go?” Holly asks behind him.

CHAPTER 2

“Belongs to a James Holmes, the address and phone number for the card are both bogus,” Natasha tells him as they put on landing gear. It took her less than 24 hours, apparently, to hack the credit card for clues.

Clint next to him grunts and cuts in, “This Barnes you’re talking about? He still owes me a rematch.”

“I’ll give him the message if I ever see him again,” Steve retorts, perhaps more spitefully than he should.

“You’ll see him again, and soon,” Natasha declares, confident as ever. She checks her last buckle, finished, though he and Clint both are only halfway through. “I think I have his movements figured out.”

“I thought you said they were random?”

Natasha shrugs. “Even randomization can be pinned down if there’s a method to it. He’s randomly choosing areas from a grid, yes, but then rotates in the subareas within them. It’s what I would do, probably, if I wanted to stay in New York for whatever reason--which means he’s not too worried about people like me tracking him.”

“He seemed proud of you, actually,” Steve says as he finishes his last buckle, and blinks in shock when her cheeks blush.

She quickly recovers, however, playing it off with a shrug. “I’ve just seen him hunt before.”

Steve would simply not question her choice of wording--he’s learned to not question most things about Natasha--but the intentional glint in her eyes is both a signal and a warning.

“Hunt?” Clint asks, obviously confused too. “You think he’s freelancing?”

Natasha doesn’t answer. She types in the code that opens up the quinjet’s doors, the roaring wind immediately blocking out all other sound. Before he can jump, however, Natasha grabs his arm and says, “He does need you.”

Steve holds on to both the foreboding and the hope that sentence fills him with as they take down the next HYDRA base.

\--

**_612 Sumner, Queens_ ** says a text from Natasha weeks later, when Steve is on his morning jog.

He doesn’t bother going back for his bike. It’s early enough he doesn’t need to swerve around too many pedestrians as Steve puts his super speed into full use for once, slowing only to plug the address into his phone and get directions in his earbuds as he flies down the sidewalks, passing the occasional vehicle.

612 Sumner is a small, top floor apartment of a shabby complex most would glance at once and look away from for good. No one is in Apartment 612 itself, as far as Steve can hear--which is far--but nearly-imperceptible breathing from the attic above it draws his attention.

“Bucky?” he asks quietly once he's on the top floor, knowing the other super soldier's ears will catch it.

“Shit,” he hears, but only barely, before the unmistakably near-silent movements of an assassin as Bucky opens the attic door into the apartment, climbs down, and approaches the door.

“They don’t know I’m staying up there,” is the first thing Bucky says as he opens the door, looking tired, worn, and a lot more like he used to in the first few months. Eyes lifeless, mouth thin and drawn, skin clinging to his cheekbones. Steve feels a pang in his stomach at the sight.

“Buck--” he starts, but Bucky waves him off and directs him into the apartment.

It’s simple, almost bare, with old furniture and trash littered on the table. “Two guys, roommates,” Bucky explains as Steve examines the space. “Kinda like we used to be, I guess. I’m not sure they’ve even looked in the attic since moving in, the only stuff up there is old and smells like grandma.”

He sighs, leaning against the counter. “So. Did you need something, Steve?”

Steve flounders for a moment, losing all train of thought as he meets Bucky’s tired eyes. He reminds Steve of post-Azzano Bucky, in many ways. Strong jawed about everything, miserable yet intent on proving how just fine he was. Cruising more than usual. Steve almost feels like he's there, giving Bucky another talking to after he slipped away again right after a mission. Except Bucky looks down now, not meeting Steve's eyes defiantly like he used to, and Steve remembers how very different things are now.

“This isn’t living, Buck,” he starts, and immediately gets a rise out of the other man. 

Bucky stands straighter, hands balled into fists, and forces himself to meet Steve's gaze. He can see the effort it takes. “And what is living, Rogers? Huh? You going to tell me how to run my life again, is that it?”

Steve takes it like any stab wound--straight-backed, teeth clenched. It’s one he deserves, after all.

“I’m not gonna do that anymore,” he says quietly. 

All the fight drains out of Bucky at once.

“I know, Stevie.” He gives Steve a half-hearted smile, gesturing around the place. “Things used to be this simple. Remember that?”

Steve nods hesitantly, curious despite himself of what Bucky does remember. “You worked double shifts,” he puts in, “So I could go to art school. But pneumonia stopped all that.”

“And the war,” Bucky agrees, expression twisting to something regretful. “You still draw at all?”

“Not really,” Steve shrugs. He hesitates before stepping closer, adding, “I’m not the same as I was then. We’re both different. Changed.”

Bucky watches him wearily as he approaches, not stopping him even when Steve gets within reaching distance. 

“Not for the better, in my case,” he murmurs, eyes slotting closed. In surrender, it looks almost.

“Tell me, Buck,” Steve breathes. 

He’s not even sure what he’s asking to hear. But though he can’t track down the physical location of Bucky Barnes, Steve has always been able to track down the intents of his heart. And a lot of little things, adding up into one big something, is telling Steve his friend is protecting him from that something.

Bucky finally meets his eyes then--and a warm, jellying feeling seizes Steve’s senses like it did at the diner, only muted, more subtle. Bucky doesn’t look away this time, though. He keeps staring, sending warm prickles down Steve’s spine, causing things to stir in him. Steve is hazily aware that his cock is hardening, straining hard enough he'd be worried it had super strength like the rest of him and would rip the front of his jeans open--if he was fully in his right mind, anyway.

“Sweetheart, you don’t want to know,” Bucky murmurs. It sounds like chiming bells, or perfectly struck chords. Steve forgets to examine the meaning of the words, simply delighting in the sound.

A knocking noise sends Bucky’s attentions away, however, his gaze shooting to the door behind Steve. The strange spell shatters, and Steve gasps in a breath as he takes in his surroundings again--the dust motes in the air, the wooden floor under his shoes, the loud, excited breathing of the man on the other side of the door.

“Shit, forgot about that,” Bucky mutters, before saying louder, “One minute, baby!”

Steve blinks further back into reality, enough to know how to glare at Bucky. 

“What the hell?” he hisses, as Bucky walks around him and starts running a hand through his bedhead.

“Steve, I’ve got business to do here,” Bucky says wearily, straightening his shirt. “You need to go.”

He grabs at Steve’s arm, tugging towards the front door, and immediately panic starts bubbling up in Steve’s rib cage at the idea of losing Bucky, _again._

So Steve grabs onto his hand. “Buck. You can’t just do--well, whatever the hell you just did to me--and keep expecting me to let things alone.”

Bucky stops. He seems to consider Steve a moment. Then says, “9178237600, okay? That’s my number. Call me on Saturday and I’ll pick up.”

He herds Steve to the door, and the awkward exchange of the short, stout guy on the other side only consists of “Sorry Jake, you're still next, baby, come on in, bye now!” and said Jake giving Steve a disbelieving glance-over before Bucky pulls him inside.

Steve knows if Bucky stays within his wide range of hearing, he’ll stay within Bucky’s hearing most likely too. And what’s going on behind that door-- _’_ business,’ Bucky called it, like sex was just a transaction to him now?--is nothing he needs to hear. So Steve hurries down the stairs almost as quickly as he hurried up them, fast enough he only catches the faint sound of a zipper and a small moan amidst the other living noises in the complex before he makes it out of range.

Perhaps the healthy, bright-eyed Bucky from the club was simply Steve's imagination. The man hardly resembles that now. But the one constant between the two very different Bucky's is the bitter way he's mentioned his sex life. Like it's some obligation. 

Something _is_ wrong. Despite how much more stable he's acting than he did with Steve, there's something he's still not happy with. Or without. 

Dare Steve hope it’s something he can give?

The sun has fully broken past the horizon, bleeding pink and yellow when Steve sends Natasha: **_he does need me. I can’t figure out why._ **

After a few minutes, she responds: 

**_Why do you need him?_ **

\--

Sam shows up on a visit from DC to test out Tony’s new-and-improved set of wings. He stops by Steve's that Friday evening afterwards, the day before Bucky told him to call--though he’s thought about calling every day since--and he’s just a _smidge_ on edge.

“You had a super hero energy drink or something before I got here?” Sam asks when Steve can’t even sit still through a youtube video with cute hedgehogs.

Steve sighs, leaning back on the couch with a groan. “Bucky gave me his number--”

“He _would_ make the first move--”

“And said to call tomorrow, no sooner. But it’s been four days. Four days, Sam. If I have to wait any longer--”

“Maybe he’s working on weekdays?” Sam suggests, and suddenly it clicks.

Bucky’s subtle but strange tells every time his sex life is mentioned, plus the way he described his relations with that Jake character as ‘business’...

“He’s whoring himself,” Steve realizes out loud.

Sam’s eyes go wide, then narrow. “You mean he’s a sex worker?”  
  


Just by the testiness in his tone Steve can surmise this is one of those century differences, and immediately adopts the term. “Yeah, a sex worker. I’m not sure, actually, but it adds up…” 

This is what Bucky's protecting him from?

“Money without a source?” Sam asks.

“Well...no, he is sleeping in someone’s attic.” Steve shakes his head and gets up, finding his favorite patch of carpet to pace. “He’s not making much, if he does get income from it. Or maybe he just moves around too much to rent, trying to keep safe. That probably doesn’t make for a lot of steady customers. And they’re all men.”

“Is it not cool with you if they’re all men?”

Steve shoots Sam a look of disbelief. “Bucky went cruising long before it was legal, Sam. And I never cared.”

“Okay, okay,” Sam says, raising up both hands, “why’s that weird then?”

Steve stops mid-pace, shaking his head. “He liked girls just as much.”

“But girls even nowadays don’t go looking for sex workers as often as men,” Sam reasons, and stands up to put a hand on Steve’s shoulder. He eyes him with that caring yet honest expression that Steve needs more than ever, at the moment. “Are you worried for his safety? Or is this about something else?”

If Bucky truly is selling his sexual services, when he could simply pickpocket or be a freelance assassin or join the Avengers or use Steve’s pension or be a barista or a thousand other occupations, there’s a reason. That's not what disturbs Steve. What does concern him is the strange, bitter attitude Bucky has about it--almost as if he _doesn't_ have a thousand other options.

Steve looks Sam in the eye, sure now. “I want him to be happy.”

“That’s all you got to tell him, tomorrow,” Sam says with an approving grin.

So it's decided. And Steve can only hope that Bucky’s happiness is something Bucky wants too--and might even involve Steve, somehow.

\--

“Hey.”

“Hey, Steve.”

His voice sounds brighter, warmer, more alive than their face-to-face encounter. Steve immediately feels better from the sound.

“Thanks for answering.”

“I told you I would.”

Steve bites his lip, letting the silence extend for a moment in case Bucky has something else to say. Eventually, the other man does.

“I’m probably frustrating you a lot, with no explanations.” Steve huffs a laugh through the receiver in answer, making Bucky chuckle as well. Then he continues, “Yeah, no question about that I guess. Have you talked to Natasha at all?”

Steve blinks in surprise, admitting, “Not in person, since you and I talked. She did say...she thinks, uh. We need each other.”

Bucky stays quiet for a while, the rushing sound of wind cutting through from the background. “Natashenka always was too smart for her own good,” he murmurs, fondly.

“Where are you right now?” Steve asks.

Bucky laughs. “Roof. Nice place to think, I’ve found.”

Steve's too eager not to pry. “What are you thinking about?”

More silence, then, this time more somber before he says, “Whether I should be selfish or not.” Steve hears Bucky sigh into the receiver. “What do you think, Steve? Give up everything to the world? Or take everything from it?”

“Sounds like too much absolution for me,” Steve says, slightly wary of the edge in Bucky’s voice. “Why don’t you go back inside?”  
  


“You’re always worried I’m going pick the selfless way,” Bucky laughs, more wind coming from the background. “Why do you think I survived HYDRA?”

“You’re the bravest man I--”

“I had lots of chances to spare the world from my existence, Steve,” Bucky says, strangely gentle. “Yet I dug in my heels and clung on like a leech. Now I’ve got to decide: taint you with the truth, or hurt you with silence. Either way, no one wins.”

He sounds sad but not desperate, tired but not hopeless. A small comfort, even if Steve's heart is breaking for this lonely man he cares for so very much.

“What do you want from me, Steve?” Bucky asks genuinely, sounding curious again.

_You,_ Steve doesn’t say. He’s not even sure what that would mean.

But it does all come down to this. Steve can’t pretend he doesn’t want many things from Bucky, most that he can’t explain, but he’d give up them all in exchange for the one thing he wants _for_ Bucky.

“I want you to be happy, Buck.”

Silence. More silence, and then more.

“You know how to sweet talk a guy,” Bucky says finally, voice slightly off. Something between amusement and pain. “Alright. What do you propose?”

“Come live with me again,” Steve says and, before Bucky can protest, “You'll be safe--you won't have to move around. I know we aren’t who we used to be. I won’t forget that, or try to tell you how to live this time. But . . . who I am and who you are now? We still belong side by side, Bucky. That hasn't changed.”

Silence, then, “End of the line, huh,” Bucky says in a wondering voice. Then to Steve's amazement, simply replies, “Alright.”

Steve stares, listening, but Bucky says nothing else. “Alright,” he answers in disbelief.

Bucky chuckles, repeats, “Alright.”

CHAPTER 3

“I’m still going to be out a lot,” Bucky announces when Steve arrives at the corner of Sumner to pick him up. He looks bright and alive, Steve is surprised to see, more like he was in the club alley. Still, Bucky wears a grim expression now as he steps closer, shouldering a single backpack. “I won’t take any company to your house, not ever, but I might not be home most nights. That a problem?”

Steve shakes his head, trying to send him reassurement through his smile. “Like I said, no controlling this time. Your decisions, your lifestyle.”

Bucky still looks braced for war. “And I won’t affect you like I did the past two times. Not ever again, pal, I swear.”

“Affect me?”

“The thing where I made you dizzy and delusional with my eyes,” Bucky huffs, and as Steve opens his mouth to respond cuts in louder, “And don’t ask. That’s the other dealbreaker. Don’t ask why, don’t ask how, or when or where. Think you can handle that?”

A week in, Steve starts to wonder. 

Bucky leaves for his night out every other day like clockwork, looking like hell and coming back like he’s drunk from the fountain of youth. The contrasting appearances Steve saw last week weren't just his imagination. Bucky spends the first day afterwards lively though a bit bitter, and the second like he’s headed to his own funeral. And the cycle repeats. 

Steve sticks around the first week to make sure he's settled in, until Bucky notices. Even after he scolds, “Don't quit your day job pal, I'm not,” Steve only agrees to a small recon mission with Natasha to appease him.

On the other hand, Steve finds himself returning to his Brooklyn apartment after the mission with anticipation, not dread of the cold empty rooms usually waiting. Whether Bucky is happy or sour, enthused or exhausted, his very presence seems to warm the air, fill up the rooms with life. Even slow the spiral of loneliness Steve so often finds himself in since coming out of the ice.

Like when Tony innocently calls with 500 questions for Steve about Project Insight because of the new information Natasha just added to the database, finishing the call with a, “Thanks Cap, good luck with Murder Bot!”

Right as the tension that’s been building behind Steve’s sternum nears to breaking point--as he’s relived being hunted, shot at, held at gun point, and fighting his friend-turned-weapon--Bucky breaks the tension with, “I don’t think _I_ knew that much about Project Insight.” 

Then he moves on from the subject and starts talking about the Fellowship of the Ring book he’s reading, that Steve should apparently start too. Steve forgets about his anxiety until hours later.

**_Did he tell you?_ ** Natasha sends, two weeks in. Steve's close to finishing the Return of the King.

**_I’m guessing no?_ **Steve replies.

**_You wouldn’t need to guess_ **

She doesn’t say anything else, over text or in person, and Steve doesn’t ask.

\--

“Location, dammit Natasha!”

“I almost have it!”

“I’m flying in--”

“No, Sam, hold on, if you two would just give me a second--”

“I’ll give you two,” Clint says over the receiver, “then you’re out or I’m carrying you out--”

“Got it!”

Steve breathes a sigh of relief as the ticking of the bomb stops from Natasha's receiver, still in range himself, though he wouldn't be quite as pulverized as Natasha if she'd failed. “Nice work. Now tell us so Clint can go whoop your ass for scaring me.”

Natasha just laughs. “Tenth floor, janitor’s closet.”

“Why is it always the janitor’s closet?” Clint says, sounding annoyed as he huffs up the stairs. Steve goes back to sifting through the filing cabinet, looking for names and dates and, more importantly, locations.

A lot have already been crossed off their list. The big one in Sokovia, for example. The Triskelion, completely wiped off the map. A few surprisingly important ones in Cairo and Texas that took the whole team to take down, a few months ago. A new one catches his eye, though--Anchorage, Alaska. Pretty remote, even for HYDRA.

Steve snaps a few pictures of the files of interest, trying not to gag at the cryptic descriptions of human testing. He's still feeling nauseous when the team meets up a few minutes later, and notices a text from Bucky in his notifications.

**_Buying the Lord of the Rings movies: normal or extended edition?_ **

**_Also, went and got Pho since you weren’t home_ **

**_Glad I’m not missing out on good food,_ ** Steve types back, **_and extended for sure. Wait till I’m back to start, though!_ **

**_Twelve hours of hobbits all alone? Not a chance,_ ** he responds as Clint flies them off, and Steve snorts a laugh just loud enough to pique the others’ interest.

“Dog picture?” Clint asks hopefully.

“Just Bucky,” Steve shakes his head, smiling fondly. Natasha gives him a side glance.

“Sounds like an oxymoron, coming out of your mouth,” Sam says, making the others laugh, but Steve honestly has no argument.

Especially since Bucky has popcorn, blankets and the first movie in the queue all set up when Steve gets back a little past dawn. 

“In celebration of your victory!” Bucky says, throwing a few kernels in the air. 

“The base was abandoned, Buck,” Steve argues, withholding of course the fact it was rigged to blow the second they crossed the threshold.

“Well I hope you got some shut eye on the quinjet, because if we don't start now I'll be late this evening for a party,” Bucky declares before hitting play. 

They start out with a good two feet between them, but by the time the hobbits make it to Rivendell Steve has lost any form of good posture, and Bucky is slumped against his side. 

“I'm sad they cut out Tom Bombadil,” Bucky grouches. “And who the hell's this elf lady?”

“Arwen was mentioned in the books,” Steve says with a smile. 

“Yeah, I guess I can appreciate a beautiful she-elf over what's-his-name saving Frodo,” Bucky agrees. 

“Glorfindel,” Steve supplies, then asks without thinking, “So you do still like women, then?”

Bucky's whole frame against him stiffens, and Steve regrets everything. 

“Nevermind. Sorry. None of my business,” Steve says, wincing. 

Bucky sits himself up and turns to meet Steve eye to eye, his expression flat. “Sure, but I've always liked men better,” he says, eyes daring Steve. To do what, he doesn't know. “That what you wanted to know?”

Steve realizes it isn't, actually. What he really wants is to understand Bucky’s current sex life, namely what Bucky does and why he does it. Which is _definitely_ none of Steve's business. 

“Glad people are more okay with it, now,” he settles on saying before looking resolutely back at the screen. 

After a moment, Bucky sighs and does the same.

He's quieter through the rest of the first film, all the way up until Boromir's death, which he half-hides in Steve's shirt during. 

“That's much worse on screen,” he sniffs, and Steve silently agrees. 

They make an early lunch, in between, six sandwiches for Steve and two for Bucky, no matter how Steve protests that he should eat more. 

“I'm eating, Steve,” Bucky says, and takes a vicious bite out of his tuna and cheese sandwich. “Just be happy I am now.”

Two Towers is a bleak film, though excellently executed, and Steve watches with growing sympathy for King Theoden as he continually tries to do what's best for his people, and continually fails. Steve can relate.

Bucky starts counting halfway through every time Sam gives Frodo a ‘thirsty look,’ as he terms it, and gets up to thirteen by the end. They stretch, grab more food, blankets, and order a pizza for the final film. 

By the end Bucky is sprawled across Steve's lap, as teary-eyed as Steve when Frodo and Sam hug one last time. 

“Wow. Maybe Frodo did love him back,” Bucky murmurs. 

“How many did you count?” Steve asks.

“Huh? Oh, lost track,” Bucky says--then smirks. “Guess we'll have to watch them again.”

He looks tired, wasted, sickly and underfed, Steve notices. And like clockwork, it's time to go cruising. It doesn't make sense to Steve. How could the two be related? Unless . . . just then an idea, however far fetched, crowds Steve's mind. 

“Are you doing drugs?” he blurts.

Bucky bursts into laughter.

Steve watches until Bucky calms down, slightly disquieted by such a reaction. But it is an answer. “I'm sorry. I know I'm not supposed to ask,” he says once Bucky's quieted. “It's just...you start to _look_ different. If it's been too long, I mean, and I…”

“It scares you,” Bucky fills in, and Steve opens his mouth to argue, but nothing comes. “Okay, Steve,” Bucky shoots him a weary smile, and gets up to go out for another night. 

\--

He starts leaving almost every night, after that. Looks vibrant and alive every day, nearly, though also more cranky and sharp in his attitude. Steve knows he's caused the change, though he doesn't know how. So what if he's concerned? So what if he notices Bucky's health? Should that mean the man does _more_ of the thing that concerns him?

It's Bucky's choice, he doesn't forget. Things are more awkward and tense between them, but Steve makes sure to keep his opinions strictly to himself. Or Sam, at the most, when they're on the phone and Steve can't keep it in any longer. 

“If you agreed to those conditions, there's not much you can do, man,” Sam tells him after he's vented. “Bucky is a smart guy. He must have reasons.”

“Good ones, I'm sure,” Steve agrees, remembering that strange effect Bucky's eyes had on him. A hypnotic skill learned from HYDRA, is his abiding theory. Whatever is going on, maybe it's linked. Maybe some old programming of HYDRA's is still dictating Bucky's actions. “But what if I could--?”

“Fix it?” Sam finishes for him. “Sorry to break it to you, Steve, but you can't fix everything. Even if you could, sometimes people have to trust first before they show you their broken parts.”

“Then how do I help him trust me?”

Sam gusts an amused breath against the receiver. “Great question, man. The answer is different for everyone.”

That evening as Bucky prepares to leave, Steve tries to be more friendly about it than usual. “Hope you have a great time,” he says at the door, with the biggest smile he can muster.

Bucky’s facade of a smile drops, however, brows pinching together. He already looks just a bit sickly and drawn, but it's that expression that gives him the appearance of a bitter dying man. 

“Don’t do that,” he says roughly, putting on his jacket like the sleeves have offended him.

Steve lets out an impatient breath, dropping the smile. “What do you want me to do then? You’re mad at me when I worry about you, and now you’re pissed at me when I try to be supportive.”

“Don’t do anything,” Bucky snaps, putting his left glove on and exiting the door with a slam.

He comes back around three am, almost too quiet for Steve’s advanced hearing. But then Bucky approaches Steve’s door, knocking twice. Probably can tell by Steve’s breathing that he’s awake.

“Come in,” Steve says, putting down his book as Bucky enters. 

“Reading in the dark like always, Rogers,” Bucky says with a bare grin. “Though I guess it doesn’t strain your eyesight anymore, huh?”

Steve indeed can read easily, and sees even in this dark the healthy difference in Bucky from the last moment he saw him. “Couldn’t sleep,” he says, drawing a sigh out of his friend.

Bucky carefully sits at the edge of the bed, eyes soft as he looks at Steve. “I’m sorry. I’m not good at explaining what I want, sometimes.”

“Me neither,” Steve concedes, and Bucky laughs.

“Do you even know what you want, half the time?” he says, and leans forward to peck Steve on the forehead. 

Steve blinks, slightly dazed by the warm feeling that travels through him as he watches Bucky leave.

\--

Natasha calls the next day when Bucky is in the living room, which apparently is who she's calling for. 

“Then why did you call me?” Steve asks. “I don’t believe for a second you haven’t gotten his phone number.”

“But that would be rude,” she replies, almost convincingly.

“At least tell me what it is about,” Steve says, drawing Bucky's attention from the tablet he’s scrolling on. 

“No, Steve. I don't want you tainting his answer,” Natasha says firmly. 

“Buck,” Steve sighs, and the other man raises an eyebrow. 

“Natashenka wants to talk?”

“Apparently.”

Bucky goes into his room and shuts the door behind him, closed off enough Steve can't make out Natasha's voice, only Bucky's responses: “Mmhmm” and “I think I remember” and “Yes. When?” Then he doesn’t talk for a long while before murmuring, “You too, маленький паук.”

He comes out unsurprised to see Steve hovering, handing the phone back over. “I’m going on a mission with her to Anchorage. Small base, mostly used for research--”

“And human testing, I found the file at the last base,” Steve finishes for him, stomach rolling with unease. “Why you?”

“Think I’ve lost my touch?” Bucky faux-pretends offense, rolling his eyes when Steve’s expression remains grim. “It’s remote, but highly secure. There’s a good chance the eye scanners will still accept my retinal scan. And, uh...I’ve been there before.”

Steve’s stomach takes a rolling twist. “Then why would you want to go back? Why--”

“I’ve done enough things against my will.” Bucky walks away from him, back towards the couch. He sits down and looks back at Steve, sighing. “This is the exact opposite of that, Steve. It’s what I would be doing anyway, if I wasn’t…”

He doesn’t finish, and Steve doesn’t presume to finish it for him.

“I’m coming, then.”

Bucky shoots him a wry look. “Take that up with the Black Widow, pal. I don’t think she trusts you and espionage in the same sentence.”

Natasha doesn’t. She assures Steve when she drops by, “You could come in guns blazing, but they’d destroy all the data before we ever got close. Bucky and I will slip in and out, and _then_ the team can go back and wipe the place off the map. I’ll watch out for him, Steve. I promise.”

Steve still doesn’t like it. But there’s lots of things he doesn’t like that Bucky does, so what’s one more?

\--

“Sir? Captain? Agent Romanoff and Sergeant Barnes have both made it to the quinjet and are in transit back to the tower,” JARVIS announces five days later, when Steve has nearly paced a permanent trail into the concrete floor of Tony’s lab. Tony looks up from whatever project he’s tinkering with.

“Hear that Cap? Your Russian duo’s just fine--” Tony starts, only for JARVIS to speak over him.

“Pardon me for interrupting, sir, but I wasn’t finished.” Steve glances up at the ceiling, then to Tony--who shrugs at him in confusion--then back up. “Sergeant Barnes has sustained multiple serious injuries. His enhanced body will likely pull through, Captain, but he is currently unconscious. The onboard medics are seeing to him--”

“What are his injuries?” Steve demands, instinctively using his best Cap voice.

If an AI could hesitate, it certainly sounds like JARVIS does before answering, “A clean break in his left femur, and a shattered right wrist. Also three bullet wounds, one of which ruptured his spleen, a skull fracture and…”

Steve passes out somewhere around then.

\--

Three very long hours later--even knowing medics were attending to Bucky, even knowing he’s on one of the fastest aircrafts in the world--Steve is nearly about to pass out again when the quinjet finally lands on Avenger’s Tower. He remembered to eat since last time, though, so chances are low.

Dr. Cho and her team stand at the ready as Bucky and Natasha are rushed out on stretchers, and Steve only gets a glimpse of either of them before a very unapologetic nurse elbows him out of the way and they wheel Bucky to the operating room. 

Natasha, conscious but bleary-eyed, gets hooked up for blood transfusions. Her eyes widen when she sees Steve approach. “Sorry,” she croaks. He grabs her hand, squeezing it gently. “Broke my promise.”

“Not your fault,” Steve shakes his head. She gives him a tired smirk in response. Then two medics crowd in and start stitching her up, forcing Steve to back up. 

He continues the waiting game, sitting up against the wall and trying to listen to the surgery going on rooms away. The loudest noise, above the medical jargon and tinkling of metal instruments, seems to be Bucky’s heart monitor. Even when he can’t understand what’s happening exactly, it plugs away, never slowing or racing much less stopping. Steve holds on to that. He even finds himself breathing with every two beats, subconsciously tying his life to Bucky’s. There seems to be some truth in that anyway.

The steady sound grounds Steve through the next two hours--and the next two days, when they keep Bucky in an induced coma. 

While his friend sleeps, Steve thinks. ‘Do you even know what you want?’ Bucky asked him, more than a week ago now, and he finds himself stuck on the answer. There were the Post-War dreams that he buried with himself in the ice--a wife and kids to come home to, a fulfilling purpose that would make his ma proud. True love, maybe. Now? 

Now all he knows is that Bucky would be involved. Maybe always would have been, if he’s honest with himself. He wants...he wants to spend the rest of his days with Bucky. To share the same life, to be entirely devoted to his happiness, and Bucky devoted to his in return.

Steve knows what all that sounds like. He’s not so dense as Bucky would at times tease him to be. But he’s also having a hard time wrapping his head around it.

While he loiters in the medical wing, picking at the large but proportioned meals JARVIS makes sure to send him, Steve decides to ask Bucky what he wants first. Maybe then Steve can rearrange his hopes accordingly.

A largely pregnant woman, apparently a HYDRA-lab-coat-turned-unwilling-test-subject rescued from the compound, also has a bed in the wing, though not much looks to be wrong with her. Steve remembers a lot of the files he found describing experimental pregnancies in the compound. He ignores her for the most part, and she ignores him. 

Natasha, on the other hand, sneaks out the very first night, giving Steve a grateful look when he raises no objection as she passes him. The rest of the team leaves to pulverize the last of the Anchorage compound, and Steve sits and waits. And sits. And waits.

Bucky’s eyes slit open at the end of the second day, surprising Steve nearly out of his chair. Dr. Cho planned to take him off the meds starting the next day, after all.

“Bucky!” he shout whispers, getting up from his seat to kneel at Bucky’s bedside. The latter looks terrible, like he’s been run over a few times or had a building collapse on top of him--the last being true.

“Hey,” Bucky says in a tiny voice, eyes opening just a little more as he takes in the room around him. “Natasha okay? And--and McKell?”

Steve makes an educated guess McKell is the name of the pregnant woman and responds, “It's you we're worried about.”

“Made it back in one piece.”

Steve snorts. “I wouldn’t say that much.”

Bucky’s lidded eyes move back to his, mirth-filled. “Still got this one.” He raises his flesh arm a few inches off the bed and makes a weak wave.

“You’re not supposed to be awake yet,” Steve says, eyeing the red help button on the wall. 

Bucky lets out a long, shallow yawn before replying, “That’s fine. I could sleep more. Glad you’re here, though.” He quickly loses consciousness.

His sleeping face, though tired and worn, seems to mesmerize Steve. Not like whatever strange ‘affect’ Bucky did those times in the past--more like looking through a door Steve’s never imagined opening before. 

“Me too, Buck,” Steve whispers, never meaning it more. He grabs Bucky's flesh hand, squeezing gently. “Me too.”

CHAPTER 4

Dr. Cho decides on a week of bedrest under close monitoring, the next morning, and Bucky’s tired face twists quite suddenly.

“Steve can monitor me at home,” he says, too calmly. 

Dr. Cho doesn’t glance from the IV bag she’s changing. “Yes, but Steve isn’t a medical professional, are you Steve?” 

She doesn’t wait for Steve’s reply, turning to Bucky and giving him a pat on the hand before leaving.

“Let’s go,” Bucky says lowly, metal hand moving to rip the IV from his flesh one. Steve luckily happens to be on that side of the bed and can move in time to stop him.

“Bucky. It’s only a week,” he says. “You can hardly stand on your own to take a piss. I’ll stay with you, okay?”

Bucky doesn’t reply. 

Steve brings cards for them to play Black Jack, gets an intern to go fetch Bucky’s ipad, even has the TV hooked up so they can watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy on Amazon again. And Bucky accepts the gifts. But he grows quieter and quieter, sicker and more withdrawn as time passes on. 

On the third day of seven, Dr. Cho frowns at her clipboard and announces Bucky’s health seems to be declining, even despite his injuries for the most part healing.

“We might need to extend monitoring to about 10 days,” she says, and something dark flashes in Bucky’s eyes.

“You can’t keep me here,” he growls, and Steve fights the urge to recoil. The sound of Bucky’s voice, just for a moment, wasn’t...human. Steve doesn’t know what to compare it to.

“We’ll wait it out and see,” Dr. Cho says with a frown, looking a little disquieted herself.

“Bucky, what’s going on with you?” Steve asks after she leaves, and the anger drains from Bucky’s eyes as he looks at him.

“I can’t...Steve, you know, you’ve seen what I get like…”

When he doesn’t go ‘cruising,’ Steve inwardly puts into place, or whatever he _actually_ does. 

But the solution simply can’t be doing it more. Whether it’s a sex addiction, or drugs, or likely something more nefarious than Steve’s brain could imagine up--Bucky is clearly physically dependent on something dangerous, something hurting him.

Staying here might be the best thing for him.

“Maybe if you wait it out, the need will go away,” Steve says.

Bucky laughs so hard he starts coughing. 

With watery eyes, he gasps, “Yeah, yeah it will, Steve,” and barks another laugh before saying, “You’re right, it will. But I’m selfish, remember?”

“You’re saying...you’ll die, then,” Steve puts together, though he’s still in disbelief at Bucky’s rueful smile in answer.

Over the next 24 hours, however, he begins to wonder. Bucky’s body weakens to the point he can’t make it out of bed, and Dr. Cho has a full body scan done with no yielding results. 

“It’s like he’s simply dying of malnutrition, but at an accelerated rate I’ve never seen,” she tells Steve that night in her office. “I don’t know what to make of it. We’re pumping all the calories we can, intravenously and otherwise. But something’s very wrong. I’ll tell you the second I figure it out.”

By the circles under her eyes, Steve can tell Dr. Cho isn’t wasting a second in the meantime.

Natasha is sitting at Bucky’s bedside when he returns. “Steve,” she says pleasantly as he joins them. “I was just telling Bucky to feel better.” She gives Steve a peck on the cheek, Bucky a pointed look, and leaves without another word.

Bucky sheepishly watches her go, something guilty in the set of his shoulders. “She just ripped me a new one, actually,” he says, throwing Steve a smirk.

“You’re sick, she shouldn’t--”

“I need your help,” Bucky interrupts, and Steve can’t remember ever shutting up faster. “Natasha won't, so...I need you to call a number. Ask someone to come here to see James. Tell him half price. Can you do that for me?”

Steve feels his blood run cold. “You’re having me send a customer to you? When you’re like this?”

Bucky’s eyes flash in surprise at Steve saying ‘customer,’ though he doesn’t correct him.

“Don’t you get it by now?” he growls, sitting up weakly. “ _This_ is why I didn’t want to involve you. This is why we shouldn’t be around each other, why I left in the first place.”

“Why do you need him then,” Steve says bluntly, folding his arms across his chest. Bucky flusters, not responding. “Out with it Buck!”

“I told you to not ask--”

If you’re walking out anyway, I deserve to know--”

“I'm not walking out--”

“I’d rather know than live with you in happy ignorance! It’s bullshit!”

“I’m a demon!” Bucky yells back, eyes wild.

Steve blinks, caught off guard. By Bucky’s heavy breathing, he’s not the only one.

“Buck . . . I know being the Winter Soldier…” Steve starts slowly, but Bucky is already shaking his head.

“No, not _metaphorically_ ,” Bucky says tiredly, looking older than he ever has. “HYDRA was into weird shit, you know that.”

“But you're not, Buck, even if you feel--”

“The serum Erskine gave you came from somewhere, and it wasn’t just normal chemical compounds.” He takes a shaky inhale, and says, “Schmidt captured a demon.”

Steve can’t imagine what he would reply with, but as it is his mouth is too dry to swallow, much less speak. 

At his silence, Bucky hesitantly continues, “Erskine got it right, with you. With me, Zola included too much of the DNA. So I got more than just its speed, strength, heightened senses. I also got its...need for sustenance.”

“You’re saying the serum came from…” Steve can’t find it in himself to say the word, so he continues, “and now, what? You die unless you have sex?”

Bucky laughs another sad, broken sound in answer. “I don't get nutrition from food, anymore,” he admits.

It does make some twisted sort of sense, considering Bucky's behavior of late. And Steve remembers nearly blackmailing Bucky into eating food, at the beginning. He simply didn’t have the desire, though Steve had assumed it was thanks to HYDRA’s conditioning. It seems there is much more to the story.

Unless.

“Who told you all this? How do you know--”

“It’s _true_ , Steve. I’ve seen the creature myself,” Bucky shot back, suddenly livid. “It fed off me the same as it did the others in the 107th.”

Steve ignores the implications of such words--of what Bucky means by the demon 'fed off’ him, or the fact he'd silently carried the burden their whole time in the war without Steve noticing--to keep a grasp on his sanity, for now. He’s still trying to wrap his head around the concept of a demon in the first place.

In a world of aliens, portals, magic and even a modern HYDRA, Steve should be used to the impossible by now.

So he swallows down everything he wants to scream, and instead asks, “There’s no other way? No cure?”

Bucky gives him a sad smile and asks in turn, “Is there a way to reverse what they did to you?”

Steve wants to yell that there’s a _difference_ , that he actually had a choice, but that’s not what Bucky’s asking. Steve knows such a thing is near impossible.

“I’ll ask Thor about any Asgardian medicine,” he decides anyway, “and in the meantime…okay.” He glances at Bucky and pulls out his phone, hating himself for this. “You want me to call?”

Something in Bucky’s expression falters, though. He looks down, away from Steve, for a moment. When he turns back there’s only resignation. 

“Do it,” he whispers. 

And how can Steve, when all this is clearly still against Bucky’s will? A binding remnant of HYDRA controlling Bucky? A sick, terrible thing that Steve has to willingly take part in?

A thought creeps in. 

That he _could_ take part in it. Entirely. Steve wonders if it would be better or worse, of course. In his hesitation, he imagines bringing a strange man in, here to take Bucky in the worst state imaginable, and is not sure he could allow it. At least if it was him Steve could ensure no harm came to Bucky. Even if, in the long run, it might hurt Steve.

Right now it feels an easy price to pay.

“What if I--?” 

He can’t finish it, and Bucky puts a cold hand on his arm. When Steve looks up, it’s to see Bucky gazing at him with a soft, loving gentleness Steve most decidedly doesn’t deserve.

“Oh Steve,” he murmurs, stroking Steve's arm and sending pangs of warmth inside him again. “I wouldn’t ask that of you.”

But it’s for that very reason Steve answers, “I know. That’s why I’m offering.” Bucky’s hand stills. He’s quiet, not giving much away, and Steve instinctively puts a hand over his. “Till the end of the line, remember?”

A note changes in the air, as it always seems to in the rare times one of them says those words to the other. Steve wonders now, as Bucky stares at him and he stares back, if all this time that feeling was more than he had ever labelled it. Because he finds himself wanting to--to lean down and _kiss_ Bucky, right now.

“Okay, Steve,” Bucky whispers, gaze not wavering. “Okay. Yeah.” 

Before Steve can lean in Bucky leans back, however, and attempts to move to the other side of the bed.

“What are you--?”

“We can make it real easy,” Bucky says with sudden determination. He gives Steve a sharp nod and pats the empty space he’s made for him. “Just kneel here, and I'll keep it quick.”

Steve does, though he’s still putting together what him kneeling at the head of the bed is for. He’s never been intimate with a man in any way, though, so some things could be different.

Bucky reaches a hand to Steve’s thigh, but it’s weak, fluttering there without strength to do much else. “Just tell me what to do,” Steve says, trying to give Bucky a reassuring smile. By Bucky’s hesitant look in answer, he likely didn't succeed.

“Okay. Just…pull yourself out first, then put my head in your lap,” Bucky instructs, quickly revealing what act they’re about to do.

Steve flushes. It’s actually what he did the last time he was intimate--with Sharon, because she didn’t have time for much else that day--but it’s much different, for some reason, knowing Bucky is the one who’ll have his mouth on him. 

In such a weakened, sickly state no less. Steve unbuttons and unzips his fly in perfunctory movements, trying to stop himself from looking at Bucky’s face as he pulls his limp cock out.

Except then Bucky says, “Look at me,” and Steve can’t help but obey. “I’m going to affect you, like I did before, if that’s alright,” he says. “This’ll be over quick.”

Steve nods dumbly, and suddenly there’s a new glint in Bucky’s eyes. Steve usually flits his gaze back between either of them, but somehow he’s found a way to stare at both eyes at once, all the tension in his body leaking out and filling instead with a gratifying warmth. 

It slowly grows hot, then, almost too hot, near his groin. Steve hears himself groan quietly at the feeling, but can do nothing else but stare at Bucky’s eyes as arousal curls inside his body. 

“Come for me, sweetheart,” Bucky says, before leaning forward to wrap lips around his cock--and heaven’s chorus couldn’t sound more beautiful. Steve understands his words this time, and feels the intensity in him build until, straight into Bucky’s mouth, it releases.

Bucky moans, closing his eyes, and Steve can suddenly control his own gaze again, squeezing his own eyes shut as he shoots out more come than he probably ever has before. Bucky starts sucking at the head, and Steve gasps as even more dribbles out onto the other man’s tongue, feeling sucked dry and oversensitive by the time Bucky releases him.

“Oh,” he says, out into the open air, hearing himself gasp and shudder as if from far away.

Bucky makes a noise of agreement, flopping back to his pillows. When Steve glances over at him he doubletakes--Bucky looks radiant. More alive possibly than he’s ever looked, even back before the War.

Steve stares at him, the bright shine of his eyes, the straight nose and filled cheeks, chiselled jaw, the cleft in his chin, the red red of his glistening lips. Steve has never come quicker in his life. But he thinks, looking at Bucky now, somehow he might be able to go again.

“Shit, that was different,” Bucky gasps, and Steve’s euphoria immediately stamps down.

“Sorry, did I--”

“No no, nothing like that,” Bucky says, sitting up and leaning on a hand as the other rests on Steve’s arm. He seems to have no problem holding himself up now. “Good different. Really. I feel, so--”

Instead of finishing he jumps out of bed, stretching, and pulls off the monitors which immediately flatline and set off an alarm.

“Whoops,” Bucky turns back to Steve with a sheepish grin. His eyes zero in on Steve’s crotch--hungrily, Steve would almost say, if that didn’t sound so weird--and he realizes he’s yet to tuck himself back in.

It’s a good job he does it quick, too, because in the next moment a nurse along with Dr. Cho are running in, faces turning from distressed to absolutely baffled as they take in the scene.

Steve stands and, when the silence goes on long enough, says, “He’s, uh, feeling better?”

CHAPTER 5

There’s a word for what Bucky says he is. For what, Steve has to admit, Bucky truly seems to be. He’s heard of it, sometime in the suspicious neighborhood he grew up in no doubt, but knows he never would have guessed had Bucky not spelled it out for him.

An ‘incubus.’ Or ‘succubus’--depending on who the demon preys on.

Bucky is a man, but his primary ‘prey’ seems to be men as well. Making him more ‘succubus.’ Though even sex demon sounds less crazy in Steve’s mind relatively than something as supernatural and superstitious as a 'succubus.'

Dr. Cho lets Bucky go mostly because he says he is going, with or without her permission, and Steve promises to look after him if he takes another bad turn, as she puts it--meaning if he goes without ingesting semen for too long, Steve adds inwardly--but they essentially bust out.

Bucky is radiant. He insists they stay out, and after nearly a week holed up in the medical wing of Avenger’s Tower, Steve can’t find it in himself to argue. He takes notice of the spring in Bucky’s step as they walk, how much quicker his movement seems, nearly more agile than he was fighting Steve as the Winter Soldier. 

Which leads Steve to wonder how much prey the Winter Soldier had to feast on--was _forced_ to feast on--before a mission. If he thinks about that too much, though, he might have to pulverize a few punching bags. Or commit mass murder. Or puke. Probably all three.

Luckily Steve is distracted by the realization of where Bucky’s been taking them as he walks into Molly’s, trying to stay in the present. The back booth is empty, the diner much more quiet at night, and Bucky slides into the seat facing the entrance with a happy smirk.

“Hot cakes?” he asks Steve.

He ends up getting them the same exact thing, Polly with the curly hair taking their order this time.

“Good to see you again, Steve,” she winks, curled lashes fluttering.

Bucky gives Steve a single raised brow after she leaves. “She seems nice,” he says, and Steve wonders if Bucky remembers just how many times he’s started egging Steve on with that very same phrase.

“And about 60 years too young for me,” Steve quips back, before quickly changing the subject. “So...do you want to revise our agreement?”

Bucky’s smirk wipes off. He bites his lip in an uncommon gesture of worry, one Steve only remembers from days rent was due or Steve started coughing out of nowhere. It's weirdly comforting to see it.

“Hey,” he says gently, trying to pull Bucky out of it. “I want what you want, Buck. Say the word. We’ll be alright.”

Bucky shakes his head. “Let’s just...worry about it later. I’ll stay with you still. Now you know why I’m going, when I leave, so…”

So they don’t mention it. And have a great time, the next two days, on Bucky's request visiting a few old places and a few new. The old chapel Steve’s ma took him to, the 9/11 memorial, the Met, the old block Bucky’s family lived on that’s been plowed over and commercialized. A few people stop to take a picture with Captain America, admittedly, but it isn’t a touristy time for the city and New Yorkers appear to be nearly immune to the appeal of walking past public figures.

Things are strangely not awkward either. Bucky doesn’t do much more than he’s ever done, just arm touches and shoulder squeezes, but they seem to happen more often. And if Steve bumps their knees under the table on purpose, or puts a leading hand on Bucky’s back when they’re in crowded areas, Bucky doesn’t seem to mind.

Steve falls onto the couch the second night, tired in a good way, and is slightly surprised when Bucky plops down next to him.

He’s not about to _remind_ Bucky to go out and feed, especially when he seems fine, so Steve suggests getting started on the Hobbit movies and the two fall asleep in the middle of the company staying in Rivendell.

Steve wakes the next morning to Bucky nearly on top of him, hot breath warming his neck where the other man’s mouth is tilted up towards. His head is pillowed on Steve’s chest, arms wrapped around his waist as if Steve is a large stuffed animal to cuddle.

Which he is very much not, Steve notes, as he takes in the not-so-cuddly morning wood pressing against Bucky’s belly. He’s surprised Bucky hasn’t woken from the feeling yet. 

Ever so carefully, Steve shifts, ignoring the nice friction against his cock as he scoots Bucky more towards the side, so only half his body covers Steve’s own. Then he waits, contentedly, rubbing a hand slowly along his friend’s back until Bucky blinks awake.

“Hnngh?” he asks Steve, before stretching and nearly whacking Steve in the face with his metal arm.

“Good morning,” Steve sighs, and notices with a sinking sensation that Bucky is finally looking a little tired, a little more drawn. “Hope I was a comfortable pillow,” he says, still not saying anything. Bucky looks better than he should, after all, more than 60 hours since Steve helped him out.

“Yeah, you were…” Bucky yawns, then cuts himself off, blinking into awareness. His eyes widen in alarm. “It’s been…?”

“63 hours about, I think,” Steve answers for him, suddenly feeling guilty. “Sorry. I should have said something last night.”

Bucky gives him a strange look, then plops his head back on Steve’s chest. “Huh. It doesn’t feel like that long.”

They lay there longer, in silence Steve wouldn’t call awkward, but definitely not comfortable. At least on his part. His erection doesn’t seem to go away with Bucky pressed up against his side. With everything else he’s been feeling towards his best friend, Steve can't really be surprised, but he is a bit annoyed at the bad timing.

Eventually he determines it won’t go away laying here, and tries to extricate himself from Bucky’s arms.

“Nooooo my pillow,” Bucky complains, arms tightening. He swings a leg over Steve, effectively pinning him down--and nudging right against the tent in his pants. “Oh,” Bucky says eloquently, looking down at it. 

Steve does too, then at Bucky, who's still staring and looks...well. Hungry is the only way to put it. 

“Yeah. Sorry,” Steve says, though he can’t bring himself to move away again. 

Bucky keeps staring. “That’s alright.” He seems to snap himself out of it, looking up at Steve with wide eyes. “I’m sorry, I don’t what it is...maybe the serum, or, or…”

“What?”

Bucky swallows visibly and shakes his head, then glances back at Steve’s erection. “Could I...help you?”

Steve’s cock twitches in answer for him, though it’s slight enough that hopefully Bucky didn’t see. He breathes out a, “Uh yeah, sure, if you want--” and chokes in the next word as Bucky moves lower and clamps his mouth down right over the material of his sweats.

Steve struggles to calm his breathing as Bucky keeps at it, using a hand but mostly his mouth to stroke Steve’s cock through his sweats. The material gets wet with spit, and at least a little precum, before Bucky finally pulls down the waistband and his cock springs free.

“Fuck,” Steve curses as Bucky quickly sucks him down to the hilt, no hesitation whatsoever. Then the bastard moans in agreement, the vibrations doing crazy things to Steve’s senses down there. He grips the top of the couch with one hand, the coffee table with the other, trying to keep his sounds to a bare minimum.

It’s still so much, so fast. Not as fast as the last time, at least, but Steve is quickly overwhelmed when Bucky catches his eye and that strange magic does its work. Arousal already present coils all the tighter, spinning Steve down an endless tunnel as Bucky’s tongue laves the underside of his cock on each swallow, throat convulsing around him.

He spasms forward, his release shooting out like a break in a dam. Bucky pins his waist down, swallowing harder, and the longest, most pitiful moan escapes Steve as the last of his come is wringed out of him.

Bucky finally lets him go, gasping as he pulls back and puts Steve’s cock back in his pants. Steve distantly is aware of Bucky sitting back on his haunches, and perhaps a poke from the other man’s cock against his leg, but Bucky gets off the couch quickly.

Steve watches him blearily, unable to lift a finger. Bucky cleans up the snacks they were eating watching the movie last night with a health and jump to his step again, and goes to his bedroom to change. When he emerges dressed for a new day and sees Steve still lying there pitifully, Bucky finally returns to his side.

“You alright? I did, uh, get a little carried away there,” Bucky says with both amusement and worry. He kneels next to the couch, looking pointedly over Steve’s sprawled state.

Steve makes his jelly limbs move, sitting up. “M’Fine. Though, uh, next time, maybe let’s do this at night? So I can sleep after, I mean.”

Bucky looks at him like he’s just spoken elvish. “Next time?” he asks in a small voice.

“Oh.” Steve can feel his cheeks reddening as he corrects himself, “If there ever, uh, was a next time, that is.”

“Okay,” Bucky nods, though the big question still hangs in the air. 

Steve can see it’s probably up to him to say it--considering it is his cock getting swallowed down, in such an arrangement.

“I’m around a lot, aren’t I?” he shrugs carefully. “And. It’s fine, by me? Obviously. I enjoy it--enjoy, myself. If _you_ want to, that is.”

Bucky puts a hand on Steve’s arm again--always his arm, except for the times he’s sucking his cock apparently--and warns, “It’s tiring. You can see that. If I go to the same person for too long . . . I can kill them.”

Steve wonders how he knows that, then decides not to ask.

“Then, until I start getting tired. Give me a break for a bit, and I should be fine,” Steve shrugs, confident on that at least. His dick twitches in agreement. “It'll be fine. I mean . . . what’s the serum for, anyway?”

Bucky gives him a disbelieving look, then snorts, then laughs, then cackles until Steve can’t help but join him. 

“What’s the serum for anyway?” Bucky repeats in disbelief, then, "Pal, if that's what you got it for…" and shoves Steve onto his back again. It starts a whole new round of laughing, then tackling, before they finally move on with their day.

\--

To say the arrangement goes well would be an understatement. Bucky keeps a check on his health, or ‘hunger’ as he puts it, only using Steve when it gets too noticeable--which is usually somewhere around 60-72 hours, if Steve’s perfect memory serves--meanwhile, he gets mind-blowing blowjobs from his best friend. What could possibly go wrong?

A lot, as it turns out, mostly in regards to Steve’s bleeding heart.

Perhaps he’s simply a sap, but it doesn’t feel right, never reciprocating. This is just a nice, friendly thing he’s helping Bucky out with--the equivalent of baking him bread. Or maybe cookies, considering how much Bucky seems to like the taste. 

But isn’t it rude, never returning the favor?

Maybe Bucky doesn’t _want_ to bake cookies, though. He seems quite happy simply to swallow Steve’s come and move on--getting more out of it, if course, than a normal human ever could. 

But maybe sex demons, in this scenario, are simply not bakers.

Yet Steve can’t help but continue to note the hard-on Bucky often gets, throughout the two weeks of their new arrangement, like the one Bucky sports now as he stands from his kneeling position. 

Steve almost opens his mouth to ask if he wants help with it too, but he hesitates long enough that Bucky has already walked away. And really, what would Steve say? What’s his excuse?

Hi, I don’t need your semen for any dietary purposes, but I’d love to taste it anyway?

Well, maybe, but Steve’s never done it before and he certainly lacks the talent of magicking someone into coming like Bucky has. No, instead he goes to Avengers meetings and blows up HYDRA bases like nothing’s changed, because mostly nothing has. 

“You’re acting...weird,” Natasha says on the flight home from their latest mission--another abandoned one, no valuable information extracted.

“Like you’ve got something up your ass,” Clint agrees from the pilot seat.

“Hey! I let you use your blow-up arrows--”

“No, not like that,” Clint interrupts, then throws a ‘help’ look to Natasha.

“Like you’ve got something _good_ up your ass,” she amends. “Uncomfortable, but good.”

Steve stares at her so hard he should be able to see what kind of telepathy she uses on him, but no dice.

“So?” Clint asks when Steve says nothing. 

He raises an eyebrow in answer. “So what?”

“So do you?”

“Literally, no. Metaphorically...maybe,” Steve admits, cracking a large smile on Clint’s face. “I’ve never had anything good up my ass, though, so I’m just guessing here,” he adds, and both their faces screw up for the classic “TMI Captain” look he loves evoking.

They change the subject, but Steve can tell Natasha’s not done with him yet. Sure 

enough, just before they land she sits closer to Steve, close enough to whisper.

“How is he?” she asks.

“Better,” Steve says, stupidly proud of himself. After all, it’s not like he controls the nutritional value of his semen.

But Bucky seems so happy when he gets back, and Steve can’t help but hope it’s not just the result of a good diet. He hopes, just maybe, Bucky enjoys the added closeness. Enjoys being with Steve, in new ways than they were before.

He certainly likes going out with Steve more, at the least. Less afraid to expend energy, he explains when asked, plus with Steve’s salary and army pension they can practically do whatever they want.

On the walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge, the wind whipping against their faces and reddening Bucky’s cheeks and nose, Steve can’t help it. His hand almost moves of its own accord, interlacing with Bucky’s gloved metal one.

Bucky seems to falter for a step, but he keeps talking, a little higher in tone, about the many, many reasons time travel to the past is impossible but time travel to the future isn’t.

People maybe look at them an extra second as they pass, now, but bundled up for the chilly October day, no one seems to see Captain America and the Winter Soldier holding hands across Brooklyn Bridge.

They never could have done this in the 40s, Steve realizes as they walk--even if they both returned home safe. They would never _have_ been safe, if Steve wanted to hold his hand then. Does that make this worth it? Everything that had to happen to get them here?

Maybe that’s another thing Steve won’t worry about. He squeezes Bucky’s hand once, and keeps walking.

With a grip on Bucky Steve can more easily pull him on top as they fall onto the couch again, which somehow has survived the past weeks’ antics. Bucky’s been more and more tired throughout today, almost past 74 hours since his last feed, so when he starts rubbing against Steve it’s not exactly coming out of nowhere.

He's always used his hand and mouth, though, and the feeling of his entire body writhing against Steve’s has him shuddering in a whole new way.

Steve groans especially when he feels Bucky’s erection against his, through their jeans. He feels the sudden urgent desire to touch it, feel it, _learn_ it like Bucky’s learned his. He snakes a hand down, squeezing Bucky’s ass once, just as Bucky pulls back and scoots down between Steve’s legs.

“Oh fuck,” Steve sighs when Bucky starts palming him through his clothing.

Bucky chuckles. “You have such a dirty mouth when I do this,” he comments, before doing ‘this’ for the next ten minutes.

He’s started taking his time, drawing it out longer, which Steve appreciates in the long run, but temporarily hates. The teasing licks, barely-there kisses, gentle sucking on his balls--well, Steve thought he knew what a blow job was, from both Carters, two USO girls, and the few women he’s had flings with in the new century. But he was very much, no contest, undeniably wrong. 

This time Bucky strokes something below his balls Steve would probably know the name of, if his brain wasn’t being sucked out of his cock, and his insides light up like a flare. “Fuck, I’m gonna,” he says--though with Bucky it’s not a warning, it’s a reward--then starts shooting into his mouth.

Bucky moans and moans around it, sucking Steve down, then wringing him out with an insistent hand and the other squeezing his balls. A few more spurts, then weak dribbles force their way out, leaving Steve gasping and panting as Bucky gives the head a parting lick and pats his wilting cock.

“It’s going to be disgusting, going back to my customers,” Bucky says absently, then wipes his chin and tucks Steve back in for him.

He’s still hard, Steve sees.

Maybe he can work up to it?

“Could I?” he asks, tugging one of Bucky’s arms. The other man climbs on top of him willingingly, giving Steve a slight frown.

“Anything you want, Steve,” Bucky says, though obviously not understanding what it could be.

Steve takes his word for it. He pulls Bucky up even further, and--after only a moment of hesitation--presses a light kiss against his mouth. 

It's...nice. When Bucky only stares at him, not protesting at least, Steve goes in for another. Then another, with slightly more pressure.

Bucky leans in a little further, then, and reciprocates. He slides their lips gently together, and Steve feels that now-familiar warmth pool back inside him, different than just arousal but in some way stronger. 

It's surprisingly not strange at all, kissing a man. Or perhaps it's kissing Bucky, specifically. He tries to deepen the next kiss, sliding his tongue along the seam of Bucky’s mouth--but then the other man pulls back.

“You don’t want to taste my mouth right now, Steve,” Bucky laughs shyly.

“Just me I’ll taste,” Steve shrugs, though he doesn’t protest when Bucky peels away from him, effectively ending the conversation as he goes to make dinner. Steve follows.

He thinks some part of him has known what he wants all along.

CHAPTER 6

“Manchurian Candidate seems to be settling in well this second go-around,” Tony remarks as they both watch Clint and Bucky do a rematch one evening. “Found him a good therapist?”

“Uh...no, actually,” Steve admits, pretty sure his cock doesn’t count. “He got a lot better on his own, without me, and now--we go sight seeing a lot?”

Tony gives him a dubious look before shrugging. “Hey, whatever emotionally repressed WW2 Vets do to deal with their shit, I guess. I myself prefer yoga and long vacations. And explosions.”

“Aw, bow, no,” Clint says on the other side of the glass, inspecting a crack in the training bow he’s been using.

“S’why guns are better,” Steve can hear Bucky grunt as he rolls and pivots, hitting every moving target with a grace and precision that’s near hypnotic to watch. Clint gets back in the game with a new bow quickly though, not quite as fast but even more accurate, if that’s possible.

After another few minutes Tony claps and yells, “Okay, friends, enough posturing! You’re both scary good, can we go back to the lounge now?”

Clint lowers his notched bow with a sigh, head hanging as he and Bucky leave the practice room. “You destroyed me,” he moans, though Bucky shakes his head.

“You were never even a hair off. And if that bow hadn’t weakened--”

“But it _did_.”

“You’d make an unbeatable team,” Steve points out as the two come out the door, which seems to brighten them both up. After Bucky hangs up his weapon he walks side by side with Steve, letting their shoulders brush as they go back to the elevator with Clint and Tony.

Sam, to Steve’s surprise, is lounging right there in the lounge with Natasha when they arrive.

“Well hey! How’s America’s Star Spangled Man?” Sam asks, getting up and giving Steve a firm handshake hug. He steps back and looks Bucky up and down. “And you--”

“I’m Bucky,” he replies, going for a handshake Sam raises an eyebrow at.

“Oh I remember. How could I forget that metal arm after it ripped the steering wheel straight outta my hands?”

Bucky pales, looking guilty long enough that Sam cracks and gives him a friendly slap on the back.

“In the past, man, don’t worry about it,” he laughs. Bucky laughs weakly too, then gives him a wide berth after that.

Sam catches up with Steve for a few minutes, apparently here for a final testing of his new wings before they’re clear for use in combat. Natasha only listens, probably also tuning in to Bucky chatting amiably with Clint. Steve himself can't help checking on him every other minute. Or second.

Sam gives him the side eye. “So, you and your pal…?” he says, because apparently Steve’s private life is written in bold on his forehead. “Conversation went well, then?”

Natasha snorts before Steve can say anything, to which he gives her an annoyed look.

“Well,” Steve starts. “We're not really…?”

_In a relationship_ , he doesn't say. Because they are in _something,_ whatever it is. 

“I'd say friends with benefits is closest to the truth, at the moment,” Natasha puts in, being scary accurate as per usual. Steve doesn't even try to question how she knows. He just glances over at Bucky, who at least seems busy enough talking to not listen in with his serum-enhanced ears.

Sam's eyebrow does a little dance. “Communication, my friend. That’s all I’m gonna say,” he says, before Tony gets impatient and starts threatening to attach the wing set to one of his suits instead.

“Alright, alright,” Sam relents, giving Steve one last pointed look before leaving.

“What are we talking about over here,” Bucky cuts in, apparently deeming it safe to join the conversation now that Sam has left it.

Natasha smiles sweetly at him. “Oh just our new friend McKell. She's decided to go home to her family in Chicago, to have the baby.”

McKell, Steve's perfect memory recalls, was the quiet pregnant woman saved from the base weeks ago. In no realm of their conversation’s actual subject, but hell if Steve is about to admit to what they _were_ discussing.

“Dr. Cho didn't find anything…?” Bucky grimaces, not finishing.

Natasha gives him a grim smile. “Unexpected? No.”

Steve takes this in, guessing now that Natasha would have brought up the subject anyway. The importance of it eludes him, however. Bucky's solemn nod in answer to her seems too weighted, too mournful, to be just general concern.

“We'd better get heading back,” he says, and Steve doesn't disagree.

Clint it appears has been showing Bucky a game app called ‘Twisty Arrow,’ which Bucky proceeds to silently play on his phone after they've ridden home on his bike. Steve is grateful, if only because it gives him space to think. Bucky’s proximity doesn’t usually help with good brain work. 

They have a good thing going, he has to acknowledge, contemplating while in the shower. Steve spends nearly every day with Bucky, basking in his presence, and Bucky can feed off a very willing, apparently very delicious prey. Steve gets meaningful touches, and Bucky gets his food. What’s wrong with that?

Maybe Steve feels like a piece of meat.

Unless this means more to Bucky than he's saying, Steve’s intimacy, feelings, and pleasure are all just means to a handy source of nutrition. He knew in the long run that might hurt. He's starting to feel exactly how much, now.

They go to bed--still in separate rooms, Bucky heading off with a half smile and a salute--and Steve lays in his for hours, wondering what exactly he would say to Bucky if he did follow Sam's advice. Every idea his brain cooks up sounds more terrible than the last:

Hi, I've never been into boys but I'm apparently into demons?

Hi, thanks for having my back all these years, would you care to have it against the wall?

Hi, I notice you've gotten to know my dick, may I properly introduce you to my ass?

Hi, I've loved you since we were in diapers, can I love you till we're in them again?

That last one is probably closest to what he means. _I'm with you till the end of the line_ would sum it up perfectly, but Steve has used the phrase platonically too many times for Bucky to understand Steve _means_ it, this time.

He probably falls asleep with his frustrated expression, which Bucky used to warn him would eventually get stuck on his face. If Steve's heart doesn't figure itself out soon, he might finally end up right.

\--

Steve is a coward. He doesn't try kissing Bucky again, during feedings or blowjobs or whichever you'd call them, or outside of them. They occasionally hold hands in public, but Bucky must think Steve is just protective or something annoyingly platonic because he never questions it.

Meanwhile the Avengers plan an attack on the biggest HYDRA base they've found possibly since Sokovia, and while discussing strategy Clint puts in, “This would probably be easier with another sniper.”

Steve pauses where he leans over the floor plans, taking in his comrades’ expressions. Sam and Natasha seem to have caught on, both nodding. Tony looks one second away from making another reference Steve won't get. Bruce just looks confused.

“If you're talking about--” Steve starts.

“Why not?” Tony butts in before he can finish. “He seems to play better with others of late.”

“He creamed me in our shooting spar,” Clint adds.

“Guy deserves a chance,” Sam nods.

Natasha leans in. “Steve--”

“Yes,” he says, to shut them all up. He feels a twinge of satisfaction at the surprise on all their faces. “Yes, of course I'll ask him.”

Except for Bruce, that is. He looks between them all. “Who?”

\--

Bucky is surprisingly hesitant, a few minutes later over the phone.

“I want to Steve, definitely, but…”

Steve guesses it's a demon problem. “What? Just tell me, Buck.”

The other man gusts a sigh into the receiver. “I'd need to feed a lot.”

“I know--”

“A _lot_ , Steve. I don't know if you'd be fit to be on the mission, if I just went...to you.”

Meaning he would also need to go whoring or working or whatever the 21st century called it. Which could be true, but then again, Steve's already been meaning to ask: “How long does it usually take for you to, uh, feed on someone too much?”

A pregnant silence follows.

“I've been meaning to talk to you about that, Steve.” Bucky's voice is hesitant, almost guilty. “Usually? A week or two. Um. Obviously, not in your case. But I understand if you--”

“I'll be fine, Buck. I mean, it's been--?”

“6 weeks.”

Steve blinks, surprised a little. The time's certainly flown. “Exactly. Six weeks and I'm better than ever. One night doing it a bit more than usual won't hurt me.”

“...maybe. We'll see.”

Bucky attends the next two meetings, quickly settling into the team and putting in his own suggestions without prompting. They do group training, and Steve should probably not be so happy to see his friend back in tactical gear. Bucky looks happier himself, though, and finally agrees with Steve to do the feeding as long as it’s 24 hours in advance.

“Time to regain your strength,” he explains.

But as the times comes, when dinner is eaten and Bucky’s showered and they're on the couch, he doesn't immediately move down between Steve's thighs.

Instead Bucky leans back, eyes solemn. “There's a way for me to take more, without you tiring too much.”

A sudden touch of nerves clenches his stomach, stiffening his spine. Which is silly, considering Steve would put his own life in Bucky's hands. So he lifts an eyebrow, trying to play it off. 

Bucky, of course, notices the change anyway. He smooths hands down Steve's chest, slowly but more comforting than sensual. 

“But only if you're okay with it. You've helped me so much, Steve.” He looks up at Steve through his eyelashes. “I could still go out tonight, and we wouldn't have to worry about this.”

It sounds sensible, even, despite the sad edge to Bucky's voice he hasn't heard in--in six weeks, apparently. But Steve's blood boils just imagining it. He shakes his head quickly, asking, “What'd you have in mind?”

Now Bucky is the one with nerves, looking down and fiddling his fingers. They haven't really talked this out--not since Steve's proposal in the beginning. Steve puts a hand over his friends’ metal and flesh ones, and Bucky gives him a hesitant, appreciative smile. 

In one movement, he gracefully pulls himself over Steve's lap. His ass sits right on Steve's cock, nearly, and it quickly becomes apparent what Bucky has in mind.

“Oh,” Steve says eloquently.

“I'll still use my affect on you! It just needs to be inside me,” Bucky rushes to explain. “When I get it like this, it's like...taking a shot, instead of a pill.”

A rational part of Steve takes this in, while the rest of him is almost entirely preoccupied by the fact he's about to have his cock up Bucky's ass. Not that it's an awful thought by any means. Steve feels himself hardening rather quickly at the thought--and the feel of Bucky on him now. But for some reason his brain has been picturing their positions the other way around.

“It's not much different than with dames. And I'll use my affect, I swear,” Bucky tries to soothe, probably reading Steve's dumbstruck look wrong.

So Steve attempts to blink it away, and pulls Bucky by the ass more fully onto his cock.

“Okay. Can I--?” he starts to ask, looking into Bucky's eyes.

But they're suddenly brighter and deeper than natural. The rest of the words die on his lips as his insides melt into a molten heat.

Distantly he notices Bucky taking off both their pants, captivating gaze never leaving his. Steve can feel his cock get freed from his jeans with much too much spring, up and raring to go like he's been jacking it for hours. Bucky reaches one hand back behind himself, probably to open his hole up, Steve realizes heavily, and that's what pulls him out of it. Steve never gets to touch, and Bucky won't let him, and suddenly it's not _fair_. 

Steve gasps, breaking away from Bucky's gaze with more effort than it ever took to point the Valkyrie down in the water.

“Stop,” he breathes out, and Bucky freezes. He doesn't jump out of Steve's arms immediately, though, which gives Steve the chance to hold him there by the waist. “I don't want that,” he says, and before Bucky's face can drop further explains, “I don't need it. Your affect, I mean. I'm aroused just fine without it.” Bucky just blinks at him owlishly, so Steve tries for a smirk and adds, “Or haven't you noticed?”

The last part forces out a hollow chuckle from Bucky, at least. His eyes hesitantly meet Steve's again, all blue and human now. “Conditioning, probably.”

Steve puts a hand on Bucky's nape, gently drawing his face closer.

“I don't think so,” he whispers against Bucky's lips.

A kiss. This is what Steve was going to ask for before Bucky bull-dozed him with affect, he remembers. And meets Bucky's mouth to remedy that. 

Their second kiss skips sweet and jumps straight to filthy. Steve leads, introducing his tongue after a moment and Bucky moans around it, giving back as good as he gets. Their mouths twine in the only dance Steve's learned the steps to, though it feels more intense than it ever has with past lovers. Like everything about Bucky--his hot breath, his warm mouth, his wet tongue--is the only source of water in a desert, and Steve's been thirsty his entire life.

He can't regret not kissing Bucky sooner, if only because he's too busy being consumed by doing it this moment.

Bucky slides fingers under his shirt, up and down Steve's chest and squeezing his pectorals with both metal and flesh hands. Steve moans when Bucky's fingers gently pinch his nipples, bucking upward at the feeling.

His naked cock brushes against Bucky's, and they both gasp.

Unlike receiving blowjobs, Steve's never done anything like this. He only moves by instinct, wrapping a hand around the girth of both of them, and Bucky throws his head back. The reaction is a turn-on in and of itself, propelling Steve to move, stroking their cocks together. Bucky's arms lock around Steve's neck tight as a vice in answer and, mouths connected, they rock together.

Bucky pulls away after a bit, staring down as Steve strokes them together like he can't believe it. Like it's been ages since someone else touched his cock, though it's surely not been that long considering what Bucky was up to until their agreement. Still, the sight of his awe turns Steve on even more than the friction of his own hand.

But maybe Steve's just assuming--his memory can't pinpoint any foolproof indication Bucky did anything else than blowjobs with his customers like he's done with Steve till now.

Could this be something new for him too?

As much as Steve would love it to just go on like this, general pleasure is unfortunately besides the point. And anyway it isn't any trial kneading at Bucky's ass with his free hand, slowly sliding a finger down the crack to nudge at the pucker he feels. Their activities must have worked Bucky up to perspiring, as it feels quite sweaty.

“Put it in me,” Bucky orders, and leans forward to nuzzle at Steve's neck.

Steve obliges. His finger sinks in quite easily--easier than he imagined, considering men don't have natural lubricant like women. Or at least, he’s pretty sure.

A little testing movement with his finger, as Steve continues to jack them both off, is also surprisingly easy. So he slowly begins thrusting in and out, Bucky's hole all the more moist somehow. Which must be more sweat.

...Right?

Bucky's spine has gone ever-so-slightly tensed, Steve realizes, though his nose is still tucked into Steve's neck. Steve stops stretching him for a moment. “Did I hurt you?” he asks, and is surprised to hear Bucky chuckle.

“If you can't tell, lot harder to hurt me than most fellas,” Bucky murmurs, in that slightly bitter tone Steve hates the sound of. But then he wriggles his ass deeper onto Steve's finger, lets out a warm sigh, and distracts him.

Two fingers later, Steve's cock is finally next in line, and when it breaches the tight ring of Bucky's hole they both groan. Bucky's hands grip bruises into Steve's shoulders, and he stares wide-eyed at Steve as he slowly impales himself on Steve's cock.

At halfway point a bark of a laugh escapes him. “I knew it was big, but,” he laughs.

“Fuck,” is all Steve can reply with, as Bucky suddenly slides the rest of the way down.

“Fuckin’ dirty mouth,” Bucky scolds, before claiming it with his own.

He sets the pace, lifting himself up and down slowly at first then faster. It's a surreal feeling. The smooth slide is both familiar and surprising to Steve, but so is the fact Bucky is bouncing on his cock in the first place, or the incessantly tight clench Steve isn't used to, having only had vaginal sex. He's going to come pretty easily, and pretty soon even at this slow pace.

But that realization pulls Steve out of himself enough to touch Bucky while he still can. So he slides his hands everywhere. One wrapping firmly around the other man's impressive length and stroking in time with Bucky's bouncing, while the other explores Bucky's heaving chest, his moving legs, his straining neck. Every smooth, hard inch of him, soft skin or steel, all of it straining in the up and down movement.

Bucky doesn't stop him, though his face contorts into slight surprise. Not a look of intense relief and pleasure like he would hope, but it might take an all out “Stop touching me Steve” to deter him from finally getting to feel Bucky, to bring him to the edge with Steve. By the noises Bucky starts making, Steve would guess he’s alright with it.

When Steve gets close, Bucky seems to realize. He slows, tugs at Steve’s neck and whispers, “Like this,” before pulling them down on the couch with Steve over him. 

Steve has no thought but to obey. The smooth, slick glide of his cock inside Bucky is addictive; he revels in the tight feel of it, of Bucky, of connecting their bodies so intimately as he thrusts faster and faster.

With Bucky’s legs hitched up by Steve’s arms, Steve finds a truly perfect angle to pound them into the couch, the furniture squeaking and creaking in a way he’d be concerned by, if he could be concerned by normal things right now. Bucky’s hands dig deeper into his back, and Steve reaches between them with a hand to bring Bucky off as he thrusts harder still.

Just the touch seems to be all he needed. With a hoarse cry and an arch in his back, Bucky comes between them. His insides seize, squeezing in rhythmic pulses that Steve’s stamina can’t withstand. So suddenly it shocks him, his own peak rips through him, sending sparks up and down his body. Steve’s thrusts become all at once harder and deeper, but sporadic as he empties inside the other man.

Then suddenly a near glow rises off Bucky’s skin. It reaches everywhere, turns his splotchy blush into a rosy tint, his beading sweat into a shiny sheen. He throws his head back, mouth open in a silent scream, and Steve can only watch as his best friend turns for one moment into an unearthly creature. Not a demon he would ever recognize--but a beautiful, unearthly thing, dark yet also glowing so bright.

Steve slumps over half of Bucky’s gasping chest, breathing even faster himself as he comes down. Eventually Bucky’s grip loosens, smoothing down Steve’s back. The glow fades, ever-so-slightly. They lie together quietly and catch their breaths. 

Steve has fallen in love with him. 

He realizes this in a gentle, steadying way, as if the fall itself was more a floating descent than the stumbling slope it's been. Full of confusion, unexplained pain, unsurety and doubt, certainly. And yet Steve only wishes he fell sooner.

He props himself up, looking down at Bucky's blissed out face. The beautiful bow of his lip, the gentle slope of his forehead. Tiny, miniscule things, that Steve can't help but stare at. The other man cracks an eye open, staring back. His mouth curves into a small smile, and Steve opens his mouth to declare his undying love.

But Bucky beats him to it. He says, “Thanks, pal,” cups Steve's cheek, then pulls away.

CHAPTER 7

And just like that, Bucky has Steve's back again, taking off the strain from Clint, who is back to covering just Natasha's six. The takedown of the base gets messy--and Steve is pretty sure Tony ends up with a concussion by the end, no matter how much he denies it--but Steve himself doesn't remember feeling this on top of the world since . . .

Since the last time he and Bucky worked together, he realizes. They fight so differently and yet as one on the battlefield, Steve with his head-on force and Bucky with his preventive offense. The agents in their path stand no chance. It does mean Steve has less HYDRA minions to plow over, but he's more than happy to give Bucky his share. He’s perhaps the only person in the world with more reason to hate HYDRA than Steve.

“What's your secret, Elric? Looks like you've spent months in a Belgian spa. Or achieved nirvana,” Tony quips at Bucky in the quinjet post-mission, holding an ice pack to his head.

Admittedly, Bucky has only partly lost the glow from the day before. It's mostly contained in his eyes now, and in the unnatural grace of his limbs’ movements.

“8 hours,” Bucky deadpans. “Every night.”

Clint busts a laugh, “He's got you on that one,” to which Tony scoffs and drops the subject.

Natasha merely quirks her lips at Steve as she walks past him, and Steve is forced to confirm his fears that somehow she knows _everything_.

“By the way,” Tony starts again after 10 seconds of quiet, and nearly half the crew groans. “What? Just thought Barnes should know, the preggers girl you and Nat helped out called up Dr. Cho yesterday.” Bucky nods for him to go on, brow furrowing. “Apparently she's decided not to keep the baby, asked the good doctor to see if you wanted it before calling adoption services.”

Tony says it all flippantly, but Steve can still detect the same curiosity filling himself in Tony’s careful carelessness. One glance at Bucky only fuels it.

Because the super soldier looks positively floored--eyes bugging wide, hands clenched onto the sides of his seat, jaw tight. Blatant indications of a strong reaction, ones Bucky would never include in his repertoire of strategically-crafted emotional responses.

“Yeah, Mr. Hydra adopting a kid, that was my reaction,” Tony chuckles off-handedly, though his eyes have narrowed. Steve decides he's ready to put an end to this nonsense.

Natasha beats him to the punch--though unfortunately not in a literal sense. “Speaking of babies, when are you and Pepper going to have a little bun in the oven?”

Tony splutters, declines Clint's jest of parenting advice, and peace and quiet finally descend on the rest of the flight home.

\--

The next time Bucky needs to feed is nearly a week later. 

Sam is back in DC, Natasha is on a solo mission, and the rest of the Avengers apparently have lives, so Steve spends the next 5 days almost exclusively with Bucky. Whether it's a quiet day of reading or binging ‘I Love Lucy’ (which Steve refuses to be embarrassed about), a day for especially intense workout and training, or a night out on the town, it's together. Bucky has his quiet moods as he always has, but it only adds to the strange familiarity Steve feels, like Bucky Barnes from Brooklyn has been resurrected. Not to mention Steve himself--his words come as quick as he can think them, Captain America filter gone, and he laughs like he hasn't since before this century. 

The only difference of note is one they never had to begin with--Bucky's feedings. When he finally seems to need another, the evening of their sixth day, he just uses his affect to swallow down Steve's spend. Back to only touching as needed, Steve can't help but notice, and not sticking around for even a second so Steve can offer himself back.

Then the Avengers invite Bucky on another mission, then another, and it seems only then, when Steve fucks him into their fast-deteriorating couch, that Bucky seems to accept being shown affection and pleasure.

Steve hates it. Over the next three weeks, more than two months since Bucky’s confession and their new agreement, he comes to detest each feeding for what it means--or rather, for what it _doesn’t_ mean. Bucky sucks him down quickly, wrings out his food, then leaves. And though he’d never turn Bucky away, out in the world again, Steve can hardly handle the conflicting emotions inside. His heart refuses to stop speeding up every time Bucky smiles at him. His mind won’t quit imagining ‘next time,’ as if Bucky will suddenly want _him_ , not just sustenance.

It doesn’t happen, and Steve’s not sure he can go on like this knowing that.

They’re at Molly’s, one evening, when it happens. Simply enough, by Bucky ordering corn chowder and grilled cheese.

“No omelet?” Holly, who’s serving them, asks in blank surprise. Steve’s shocked himself.

“Can’t always get the same thing.” Bucky says it with a bright smile that still manages to look sad--and somehow Steve knows what’s coming.

“Buck,” he starts, once Holly is gone, and is surprised when Bucky doesn’t interrupt. His gaze is steady, and strong, and everything in this world that Steve loves. So he continues, “I’m glad you agreed. To live with me, be here, everything, but...”

“But I’ve taken advantage of you for quite long enough,” Bucky ends for him, smiling sadly again. He looks almost relieved, though, shoulders lowering incrementally away from his ears. “Yeah. I realize that, Steve.”

It’s not what Steve planned to say. But he can’t find it in himself to explain what he really means.

All he can do is ask, “You won’t leave this time?”

Bucky immediately shakes his head. “‘Course not. And...if you’d still have me, that is...I’d still like to help with the Avengers. When I can afford to, anyway.”

Steve nods, swallows down the lump in his throat, and ends up ordering a third stack of pancakes.

His mind is in turmoil as they walk home. Unthinkingly, he reaches for Bucky’s hand, and the faltering step and look he gets in answer quickly muddles everything in Steve's mind. 

Why would Bucky be surprised, unless the sex and the handholding were connected in his mind as well? Like this was something more?

Bucky recovers quickly, reaching his own hand out, but Steve is too caught up in the implications. If they do join hands, is he confirming that the action had been meant platonically all along? And would that be best, in the end?

He waits too long, and Bucky shoves his hand back in his pocket.

Tonight would usually be time for another feeding. The moment they walk in to his apartment Steve can feel the tension like static between them, crowding his ears and crawling up his arms. Bucky heads to his bedroom, and he can hear him changing into different clothes, breathing unnaturally steady.

When he comes out and heads toward the door in a tight shirt and black jeans, hair slicked, Steve realizes he’s made a terrible mistake.

“Stop,” he says without thinking. Bucky freezes with his hand on the doorknob, not turning around. “Please. Don’t…don’t go.”

His perfect vision catches the slightest of tremors move up Bucky’s spine. But his voice is steady as he answers, “I have to.”

Steve shakes his head, though Bucky’s still facing the door. 

“No. You can stay.”

Bucky sighs, long and heavy. He turns to Steve with such an old, sorrowful expression it brings tears to Steve’s eyes. Bucky can probably see them, smearing Steve's vision, but he stubbornly refuses to wipe them away.

Bucky walks slowly into his space, and wipes them away himself. 

“It was never a choice for Steve Rogers,” he murmurs, with the slightest of smirks. He leaves his flesh hand on Steve’s cheek. “It was always give everything to the world, for you.” 

Steve’s perfect memory calls up their phone conversation months ago, and he huffs. “I’m not being selfless,” he promises, but Bucky only shakes his head at him.

“The fact that you believe that only confirms what I’m saying,” he chuckles, not making any sense. But then he steps back, squares his shoulders, and looks Steve in the eye. “It would be hard to find someone, last second. So...one last night?”

“In my bed, this time,” Steve answers quickly.

Bucky cocks his head a little, eyes narrowed, but he nods in agreement.

It was a terrible idea, Steve realizes only a few minutes later. Every time he sleeps on this bed, now, he’ll remember in perfect detail Bucky sucking around his cock like he is at this very moment. He’ll recall Bucky’s hands, finally touching him again, the dip in the mattress as he changes position to take Steve in deeper. He'll feel the echo of intimacy, of closeness, and recognize the dream for what it truly was all along--a dream.

There is no satisfactory resolution. He comes much too quickly than he’d wanted to, and Bucky leans back and wipes his mouth without a hint of expression. He puts Steve's drooping cock back into his boxers, and while it's a thoughtful gesture it feels like a dismissal, right now.

Steve feels the pricks in his eyes return, and along with it a rush of embarrassment--that he’s consciously allowed this to mean so much more to him than it ever meant to his friend. 

“Thank you, Steve,” Bucky says, then, the last nail sealing Steve’s hopeful heart in its coffin. His friend sits up completely, edges off the bed, and leaves.

There’s quiet, everywhere except inside him.

When the first sob crawls its way up Steve’s throat, he chokes it down, pressing his face into a pillow. How could he be so stupid? How could he ruin everything so spectacularly?

He can still feel every place Bucky touched him. He can still hear his breath, his quiet moans, his laughter when Steve fucked him. He can still call up those pitiful fantasies, that Bucky would stay and want him.

But how could he not fall in love with Bucky Barnes?

“Steve?”

Steve’s burning eyes shoot open, body wrenching to a sitting position. Bucky is back at the door, must have never truly left. To Steve's surprise, his face is...open. Hesitant, worried, wide-eyed even, but open.

“I'm so sorry Steve, that I…”

He bites his lip, looking remorseful in a strange way. Like more than just a look of guilt for using Steve, but for something deeper, older.

It's not exactly the fantasy Steve imagined--Bucky is at the door, saying his name, but apologizing, not crowding up against him and fucking him until he forgets his own name. 

Steve feels a surge of determination anyway. He's done hoping. Holding out a hand, he says, “Come here.”

Bucky goes.

He holds out his other hand once Bucky is near, and Bucky hesitantly kneels on the bed, accepting his embrace.

They hold each other tight, and it feels a thousand times more intimate than Bucky's mouth on his cock. Steve can feel every minute shift in Bucky's chest as he breathes, the fluttering of his pulse, the tensing and untensing of every muscle. Warmth floods him, stronger than it ever has. 

Love, Steve now recognizes it as.

Then, somehow in pulling out of the hug, their mouths meet. Bucky freezes, maybe the accidental instigator. But Steve is still high on that warmth. It’s natural then to press back gently, to soothe a hand down the nape of Bucky’s neck, encouraging his lips to move. 

A wounded, sobbing sound from Bucky nearly startles him out of the kiss, but Bucky is suddenly clinging to him by the collar of his shirt, making it impossible. 

The kissing is slow like the first, yet with all the searing heat of the second. Steve doesn’t have the presence of mind to wonder how it all happens--both of them divested of clothing, Bucky’s hands all over, then beneath Steve’s balls, stroking, mouths rarely separating. Bucky clinging to him like a raft in the middle of a storm.

Steve only knows, as Bucky parts only for the sake of grabbing lube and a condom from the bedside drawer, as he fills Steve with gentle fingers, that he’ll never stop wanting this. No matter how many times Bucky gives it to him, Steve’s desire will only grow, not settle. He will never, ever, ever get enough.

Bucky confirms this when he puts on the condom and inch by inch introduces his cock, giving more than Steve ever knew he could take. Even as he now wants more, wants everything, wants Bucky without rubber protection Steve is sure he doesn't need. 

But Steve doesn't have the presence of mind to articulate that. Though the burn is remarkable and the feeling overwhelming, Steve’s never given this to anyone, not even the few he's at some level loved. There is no one else, Steve realizes as the stretch eases but the intensity doesn't. And there never will be anyone else. 

He holds onto Bucky as he thrusts, and lets everything else go.

Someone comes, and the other follows, and Steve falls asleep in Bucky's mismatched arms, weary but for once at peace.

\--

A distant phone ringing jolts Steve awake. 

It's 4am, and Bucky's already off the bed, shuffling around in the dark to retrieve the device from his discarded pants.

“'S'it?” Steve mumbles, sitting up.

“Nat,” comes Bucky's quiet reply. He swipes answer and puts the phone to his ear. From here, Steve's perfect ears catch every word.

“She's gone into labor. Have you decided?”

Steve sits up with a blink, more awake now.

Bucky sighs, rubbing his face. “Will you let me know when it's born?”

“It's a she.” A beat. Then: “You haven't told Steve still.”

Bucky glances at Steve, unsurprised to see him alert and listening. “I don't have to.”

“That depends on what you want.”

Bucky lets out a harsh laugh. “When did you grow so wise, малышка?”

She doesn't readily reply, and seeing the stiff line of Bucky's back propels Steve into action. He moves to the edge of the bed and, when Bucky doesn't react, reaches to pull him by the waist. Bucky stands between his legs, this way, and Steve reaches to hug his middle, maybe help him relax.

But for whatever reason it has the opposite effect. Bucky only stiffens further and, in a short clipped tone, says, “Let me know,” before hanging up.

“It's McKell? The woman you saved?” Steve murmurs, looking up at Bucky in the dark. The other man stares ahead, not looking back.

“I don't want to talk about her,” he whispers. 

Steve nods against his stomach. “Okay. Let's--”

“I'm tired, Steve,” Bucky interrupts in a tone of finality. He steps out of Steve's embrace, and turns toward the door.

“You can sleep here,” Steve says, though he's starting to realize how vulnerable he's letting himself be. Especially when Bucky doesn't answer, starts walking out.

But it can't be. Steve just gave him everything. He _can't_ leave.

“ _Bucky,_ ” he pleads. 

Bucky stops, sighs, at the doorway again just like a few hours ago. He looks down, not meeting Steve's eyes. 

Still, Steve starts, “Last night… wasn't like anything else we've done.”

Bucky nods, looking all the more defeated. “Yeah.”

“I just don't know what it was,” Steve says, consciously not adding ‘to you.’

Bucky suddenly meets his gaze then, eyes glinting in the dark. “It's still called fucking, Steve, even when I'm the one doing it.” 

He turns on his heel and moves out of sight. 

But this can't be it. Steve rushes to his feet, not content to watch him leave another time.

“Stop!” 

He catches up to Bucky in the hallway, grabbing his steel arm. Bucky looks at him with a blankness that can only be forced. 

“That's not what I mean,” Steve entreats, and grabs at Bucky's face with both hands. Not to kiss, or to caress, but to force Bucky to see him. To listen, not just hear.

Something in his friend's mask cracks, and he drags in a shaky breath before whispering, “If you don't know what it was, why do you think I do?”

Maybe Bucky is just as scared as Steve was not 24 hours ago, he realizes. Not knowing, or daring to hope, that all of this has been more than a favor. A transaction. Though he's not perfectly confident himself on Bucky's feelings, he can't ignore his own any longer. Steve gentles his grip, stepping in closer. 

“I can tell you what I hoped it was.”

Bucky flinches like he's punched him in the gut. “Steve, stop--”

“No you stop,” Steve growls, not willing to just let him go anymore. “Listen to me, for one second in your goddamn life.”

By some miracle, Bucky looks down and nods, quiet. 

Steve lifts his chin up with a gentle finger. “I hope you liked it, first off, at least half as much as I did,” he starts, feeling his cheeks warm. “I hope you want to stay here, with me. I hope...we have a future. Together.”

Then Bucky's face crumbles. “It's been too many times," he says miserably, pulling away. "I'm sorry, Steve. My affect, I didn't know it would…”

It falls into place, what Bucky's trying to get at. Steve forces his voice to calm and answers, “You're saying you 'affected' me into caring about you.”

It comes off a tad bit more incredulous than he intended, but Bucky just looks tired. “When did you start feeling this way.” 

“I don't--”

“You can't tell me you always have, Steve, I remember, you never went cruising a day in your life.” 

"No, I haven't," Steve admits. "But I know how I feel. Ever since seeing you again--"

"Then you didn't have these 'feelings' at any point before," Bucky concludes, as if that determines something. "And that's because I never used my affect on you before."

"You're being ridiculous," Steve snaps.

"No, I've just been fucking stupid," Bucky laughs coldly. 

"I won't argue with that," Steve says.

"Steve--"

"Last night," Steve says gently, stepping back in again. Bucky's brow crinkles. "Think about it. There was no affect, there was no--no reason, like there has been before. Except, for me, there was I guess. My reason is . . . I love you, Bucky."

Bucky stares hard at him for a second, before his hand shakily cup Steve's face and the man whispers, "I've loved you every moment of my life, Steve. But what if--"

Steve silences the rest of that sentence with his lips, moving them slowly, carefully, making every press and pull an answer.

After a moment, Bucky gives in. He wraps his arms around Steve's shoulders and leans in close, deepening the kiss.

When they part, breathless, they're both smiling.

EPILOGUE

Steve sits quietly in the waiting room, fiddling with his thumbs. Natasha is next to him, pretending to be asleep on his shoulder.

Bucky is adopting the baby. He's been gone for more than an hour now, filling out last minute paperwork and talking with the mother. Steve yawns and shifts, trying to stretch slowly without jostling Natasha. 

She mutters, "Stop moving, pillow," before raising her head, looking around them with an innocent sleepy expression. 

"Worried that grandma over there is going to pull a gun?" Steve asks, only half-joking.

Natasha gives him a wink as she yawns, whispering, "This baby is HYDRA property, in their eyes. Can't hurt to be on guard."

But everything goes surprisingly smooth. Bucky comes out with a car seat in one hand, a bulging file in the other, and a slightly nauseous look on his face.

"Ready to go, Daddy?" Natasha says with a smirk, and gets up to start the car. 

Steve still is getting used to that--the idea that, though Natasha is many years their senior, she and the other widows had been fathered by Bucky in his time as Winter Soldier. And so was McKell's child

As it is, he mostly ignores her and goes up to Bucky, putting what he hopes is a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Bucky still looks a bit green, but he offers a shaky smile.

"She's mine," he says in a shaky voice. 

"She?" Steve asks, looking down at the sleeping little thing wrapped up in the carrier. "Got a name yet?"

Bucky shakes his head. As they walk out the hospital doors, though, he says, "Something silly. Nostalgic, probably."

"Like Brooklyn?"

"Ugh, definitely not," Bucky grimaces.

"How about Stephanie?" Steve snickers, and Bucky rolls his eyes.

He grabs Steve's hand then, though, smiling softly. "Not in a hurry. I'm sure it'll come to me, if I just wait long enough."

Steve kisses him, hard, then quips, "Hope she takes after you, and you don't have to wait another 70 years."

They walk to the car, ready to head home.

(He names her Molly.)

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make all the work worth it ❤


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